THE BABY AND THE BEAR
FOURTH STORY OF THE SERIES ENTITLED “BABES OF THE WILD”
BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
The raft was a tiny one, four logs pinned together with two lengths of spruce pole. It was made for just the use to which the Child was now putting it. A raft was so much more convenient than a boat or a canoe, when the water was still and one had to make long, delicate casts in order to drop one’s fly along the edges of the lily-pads. But the Child was not making long, delicate casts. On such a day as this, the some- what simple trout of Silverwater demanded no subtleties. They were hungry, and they were feeding close inshore; and the Child was having great sport. The fish were not large, but they were clean, trim-jawed, bright fellows, some of them not far short of the half-pound; and the only flaw in the Child’s exultation was that Uncle Andy was not on hand to see his triumph. To be sure, the proof would be in the pan that night, browned in savory corn-meal after the fashion of the New Brunswick backwoods. But the Child had in him the making of a true sportsman; and for him a trout had just one brief moment of unmatchable perfection—the moment when it was taken off the hook and held up to be gloated over or coveted.
The raft had been anchored, carelessly enough, by running an inner corner lightly aground. The Child’s weight, slight as it was, on the outer end, together with his occasional ecstatic, though silent, hoppings up and down, had little by little sufficed to slip the haphazard mooring. This the Child was far too absorbed to notice.
All at once, having just slipped a nice half-pounder onto the forked stick which served him instead of a fishing-basket, he noticed that the wooded point which had been shutting off his view on the right seemed to have politely drawn back. His heart jumped into his throat. He turned, and there were twenty yards or so of clear water between the raft and the shore. The raft was gently, but none too slowly, gliding out toward the tumbling whitecaps.
Always methodical, the Child laid his rod and his string of fish carefully down on the logs, and then stood for a second or two quite rigid. This was one of those dreadful things which, as he knew, did happen, sometimes, to other people, so that he might read about it. But that it should actually happen to him! Why, it was as if he had been reading some terrible adventure, and suddenly found himself thrust, trembling, into the midst of it. All at once those whitecaps out in the lake seemed to be turning dreadful eyes his way, and clamoring for him! He opened his mouth and gave two piercing shrieks, which cut the air like saws.
“What ’s the matter?” shouted an anxious voice from among the trees.
It was the voice of Uncle Andy. He had returned sooner than he was expected. And instantly the Child’s terror vanished. He knew that everything would be all right in just no time.
“I’m afloat. Bill’s raft ’s carrying me away!” he replied, in an injured voice.
“Oh!” said Uncle Andy, emerging from the trees and taking in the situation. “You are afloat, are you! I was afraid, from the noise you made, that you were sinking. Keep your hair on, and I ‘ll be with you in five seconds. And we ‘ll see what Bill’s raft has to say for itself after such extraordinary behavior.”
Putting the canoe into the water, he thrust out, overtook the raft in a dozen strokes of his paddle, and proceeded to tow it back to the shore in disgrace.
“What on earth did you make those dreadful noises for,’ demanded Uncle Andy, “instead of simply calling for me, or Bill, to come and get you?”
“You see, Uncle Andy,” answered the Child, after some consideration, “I was in a hurry, rather, and I thought you or Bill might be in a hurry, too, if I made a noise like that, instead of just calling.”
“Well, I believe,’ said Uncle Andy, seating himself on the bank and getting out his pipe, “that at last the unexpected has happened. I believe, in other words, that you are right. I once knew of a couple of youngsters who might have saved themselves and their parents a lot of trouble 1f they could have made some such sound as you did, at the right time. But they could n’t, or, at least, they did n’t; and, therefore, things happened, which I ’ll tell you about if you like.”
The Child carefully laid his string of fish in a486
