Thus,--from a tolerable knowledge of bears and of their comparative mildness in the plump season of the year,--he shouted at the top of his lungs; and, at the same time, fired into the air.
The bluff sufficed. Even as Lad jumped back from close quarters and whirled about, at sound of the voice and the shot,--the bear dropped to all fours, with ridiculous haste; and shambled off at very creditable speed into the tangle of undergrowth.
Not so far gone in the battle-lust had Bruin been that he cared to risk conflict with an armed man. Twice, before, in his somewhat long life, had he heard at close quarters the snap of a rifle, in the forest stillness, and the whine of a bullet. Once, such a bullet had found its mark by scoring a gouge on his scalp;a gouge which gnats and mayflies and "no-see-'ems" and less cleanly pests had made a torment for him, for weeks thereafter.
Bruin had a good memory. Just now, he had nothing to defend. He was not at bay. Nor had the fight-fury possessed him to the exclusion of sanity. Thus, he fled. And, eagerly, Lad gave chase.
But, at the very edge of the bush-rampart, the Master's call brought the collie back, to heel, exceeding glum and reluctant.
Reproachfully, Lad gazed up at the man who had spoiled his morning of enthralling sport. Halfheartedly, Lad listened to the Master's rebuke, as he followed back to camp. His day had begun so delightfully! And, as usual, a human had interrupted the fun, at the most exciting time; and for no apparent reason. Humans were like that.
Barring one other incident, Lad's two weeks at camp were uneventful,--until the very last day. That "one incident" can be passed over, with modest brevity. It concerned a black-and-white cat which Lad saw, one evening, sneaking past the campfire's farthest shadows. He gave chase. The chase ended in less than ten seconds. And, Lad had to be bathed and scoured and rubbed and anointed, for the best part of twenty-four hours, before he was allowed to come again within fifty feet of the dining tent.
On a raw morning, the car and the truck made their appearance at the foot of the rocky mountaintop hillock. The tents had been struck, at daylight; and every cooking utensil and dish had been scoured and put into the crate as soon as it was used. Camp was policed and cleaned. The fire was beaten to death; a half-score pails of water were dowsed over its remains; and damp earth was flung upon it.
In short, the camping spot was not only left as it had been found and as one would want it to be found again, but every trace of fire was destroyed.
And all this, be it known, is more than a mere rule for campers.
It should be their sacred creed. If one is not thoroughgoing sportsman enough to make his camp-site scrupulously clean, at least there is one detail he should never allow himself to neglect;--a detail whose omission should be punished by a term in prison: Namely, the utter extinction of the campfire.
Every year, millions of dollars' worth of splendid trees and of homes are wiped out, by forest fires. No forest fire, since the birth of time, ever started of its own accord. Each and every one has been due to human carelessness.
A campfire ill-extinguished;--a smolder of tobacco not stamped out;--the flaming cinders of a railroad train,--a match dropped among dry leaves before spark and blaze have both been destroyed,--these be the first and only causes of the average forest fire. All are avoidable. None is avoided. And the loss to property and to life and to natural resources is unbelievably great.
Any fool can start a forest fire. Indeed, a fool generally does.
But a hundred men cannot check it. Forest wardens post warnings.
Forest patrols, afoot or in airships, keep sharp watch. But the selfish carelessness of man undoes their best precautions.
Sometimes in spring or in lush summer, but far oftenest in the dry autumn, the Red Terror stalks over mountain and valley;leaving black ruin in its wake. Scarce an autumn passes that the dirty smoke reek does not creep over miles of sweet woodland, blotting out the sunshine for a time and blotting out rich vegetation for much longer.
This particular autumn was no exception. On the day before camp was broken, the Mistress had spied, from the eyrie heights of the knoll, a grim line of haze far to southward; and a lesser smoke-smear to the west. And the night sky, on two horizons, had been faintly lurid.
The campers had noted these phenomena, with sorrow. For, each wraithlike smoke-swirl meant the death of tree and shrub. Lad noted the smudges as distinctly as did they. Indeed, to his canine nostrils, the chill autumn air brought the faint reek of wood-smoke; an odor much too elusive, at that distance, for humans to smell. And, once or twice, he would glance in worried concern at these humans; as if wondering why they took so coolly a manifestation that a thousand-year-old hereditary instinct made the dog shrink from.
But the humans showed no outward sign of terror or of rage. And, as ever, taking his tone from his gods, Lad decided there was nothing to fear. So, he tried to give no further heed to the reek.
The driver of the truck and his assistant were full of tales of the fire's ravages in other sections. And their recital was heard with active interest by the folk who for fourteen days had been out of touch with the world.
