CHAPTER XII
THE MAN FROM TINTACKER
Ruth was just as scared as she could be. Although the bear did not seem particularly savage, there surely was not room enough on the path for him and Ruth to pass. The beast was ragged and gray looking. His little eyes twinkled and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, like that of an ox when it is plowing. Aside from a grunt, or two, he made at first no threatening manifestation.
Helen could not remain inactive and see a bear chase her chum over the rocks; therefore she picked up a good-sized stone and threw it at the beast. They say—at least, boys say!—that a girl can't throw straight. But Helen hit the bear!
The stone must have hurt, for the beast let out a sudden growl that was in quite a different tone from the sounds he had made before. He turned sharply and bit at the place on his flank where the stone had hit him, and then, in a perfectly unreasonable manner, the bear turned sharp around and scampered after Ruth harder than ever. It was plain that he blamed her for throwing the stone. At least, she was nearest to him, and the bear was anxious to get out of the way of the screaming girls below.
Ruth did not give voice to her fear. Perhaps if she had shrieked as The Fox did the bear would have been afraid of her. As it was, he came on, growling savagely. And in half a minute he was fairly upon her heels!
The way up the height was in a gully with steep sides. Ruth, casting back over her shoulder a single terrified glance, saw the lumbering beast right upon her heels. The rocks on either hand were too steep to climb; it seemed as though the bear would seize her in a moment.
And then it was that the miracle happened. It seemed as though the girl must be torn and mangled by the bear, when a figure darted into sight above her. A voice shouted:
"Lie down! Lie down, so I can shoot!"
It was a man with a gun. In the second Ruth saw him she only knew he was trying to draw bead on the pursuing bear. She had no idea what her rescuer looked like—whether he was old, or young.
It took courage to obey his command. But Ruth had that courage. She flung herself forward upon her hands and knees and—seemingly—at the same instant the man above fired.
The roar of the weapon in the rocky glen and the roar of the stricken bear, was a deafening combination of sound. The bullet had hit the big brute somewhere in a serious spot and he was rolling and kicking on the rocks—his first throes of agony flinging him almost to Ruth's feet.
But the girl scrambled farther away and heard the rifle speak again. A second bullet entered the body of the bear. At the same time a lusty shout arose from below. The boys and Jib having explored the river-tunnel as far as they found it practicable, had returned to the camp and there discovered where the girls had gone. Jib hastened after them, for he felt that they should not be roaming over the rocks without an armed escort.
"Hi, yi!" he yelped, tearing up the path with a rifle in his hand. "Keep it up, brother! We're comin'!"
Tom and Bob came with him. Jib saw the expiring bear, and he likewise glimpsed the man who had brought bruin down. In a moment, however, the stranger darted out of sight up the path and they did not even hear his footsteps on the rocks.
"Why, that's that feller from Tintacker!" cried the Indian. "Hey, you!"
"Not the crazy man?" gasped Jane Ann.
"Oh, surely he'll come back?" said Helen.
Ruth turned, almost tempted to run after the Stranger. "Do you really mean to say it is the young man who has been staying at the Tintacker properties so long?" she asked.
"That's the feller."
"We'd ought to catch him and see what Uncle Bill has to say to him about the fire," said Jane Ann.
"Oh, we ought to thank him for shooting the bear," cried Madge
"And I wanted to speak with him so much!" groaned Ruth; but nobody heard her say this. The others had gathered around the dead bear. Of a sudden a new discovery was made:
"Where's Mary?" cried Helen.
"The Fox has run away!" exclaimed Madge.
"I'll bet she has!" exclaimed Jane Ann Hicks. "Didn't you see her, Jib?"
"We didn't pass her on the path," said Tom.
Ruth's keen eye discovered the missing girl first. She ran with a cry to a little shelf upon which the foxy maid had scrambled when the excitement started. The Fox was stretched out upon the rock in a dead faint!
"Well! would you ever?" gasped Madge. "Who'd think that Mary Cox would faint? She's always been bold enough, goodness knows!"
Ruth had hurried to the shelf where The Fox lay. She was very white and there could be no doubt but that she was totally unconscious. Jib lent his assistance and getting her into his arms he carried her bodily down the steep path to the camp, leaving Tom and Bob to guard the bear until he returned to remove the pelt. The other girls strung out after their fainting comrade, and the journey to the summit of the natural bridge was postponed indefinitely.
Cold water from the mountain stream soon brought The Fox around. But when she opened her eyes and looked into the face of the ministering Ruth, she muttered:
"And you saw him, too!"
Then she turned her face away and began to cry.
"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed the ranchman's niece, "don't bawl none about it. The bear won't hurt you now. He's dead as can be."
But Ruth did not believe that Mary Cox was crying about the bear. Her words and subsequent actions did puzzle the girl of the Red Mill. Ruth had whispered to Tom, before they left the scene of the bear shooting:
"See if you can find that man. If you can, bring him into camp."
"But if he's crazy?" Tom suggested, in surprise.
"He isn't too crazy to have saved my life," declared the grateful girl. "And if he is in his right mind, all the more reason why we should try to help him."
"You're always right, Ruthie," admitted Helen's brother. But when the boy and Jib returned to camp two hours later, with the bear pelt and some of the best portions of the carcass, they had to report that the stranger who had shot the bear seemed to have totally disappeared. Jib Pottoway was no bad trailer; but over the rocks it was impossible to follow the stranger, especially as he had taken pains to hide his trail.
"If you want to thank that critter for saving you from the b'ar, Miss Ruthie," the Indian said, "you'll hafter go clear over to Tintacker to do so. That's my opinion."
"How far away is that?" demanded Mary Cox, suddenly.
"Near a hundred miles from this spot," declared Jib. "That is, by wagon trail. I reckon you could cut off thirty or forty miles through the hills. The feller's evidently l'arnt his way around since Winter."
Mary asked no further question about the man from Tintacker; but she had shown an interest in him that puzzled Ruth.