“If I could just square off and hit him,” Olaf said regretfully looking back for a final glare at Dabney, “that might settle him once for all.”
“No,” Nancy returned wisely, “it would only begin a lot of trouble that would involve more people than yourself.”
“So John Herrick says,” the boy agreed with a sigh, “though it still seems to me the simplest way out of it.”
They scrambled up the hill, out beyond the shadow of the pines to the open pasture land where the trees had been cut, where the new growth was springing up, and where among the old stumps the berry bushes and vines matted the ground. It was a hot summer day, very still, except for the grasshoppers singing shrilly, but not with that peaceful drowsy heat that Nancy knew. The air was far too bracing for any one to feel lazy or sleepy as on the summer days at home. The blue distances shimmered, the sky was cloudless, everything seemed to stir and throb with the energy of living. The baskets filled rapidly as the two went from one patch to another, climbing higher and higher up the mountain. Suddenly Olaf glanced over his shoulder and then turned about quickly.
“Just look there,” he said in a low voice.
Something like a big black dog was moving among the bushes, its smooth round back showing now and again above the tangled thicket. Presently, as it crossed an open space, Nancy saw it more clearly, with its small head, clumsy feet, and odd shuffling walk. She had never seen a bear at large before.
“Oh,” she breathed, and dropped her basket.
“There is no need to be afraid,” Olaf assured her. “A bear won’t bother you at all if you leave him alone. They have ugly tempers, and if you once make them angry they will follow you a long way to get even. But this one won’t hurt us.”
The creature, at first quite unconscious of their presence, went slowly along, snuffing among the roots, turning over stones to lick up the ants beneath them. Finally observing them, it stood on its hind legs to peer over a clump of bushes, looking so much like a shy, but inquisitive boy that Nancy laughed aloud.
“Oh, see, there’s another, two little ones,” she exclaimed.
Olaf looked where she pointed and took up the baskets hastily. “If there are cubs it is quite a different thing,” he said quickly. “A mother bear never does anything you think she will. It would be better for us to go.”