“It—it’s like a great, beautiful church,” Donald murmured low. In that still place even his murmur echoed and re-echoed from pillar to pillar.
“What a place for silence,” Johnny whispered. Yet, even as he spoke that silence was smashed into a million echoes by a tremendous outburst of sound, a roar that might, Johnny thought, have come from the throat of some prehistoric monster. But Johnny was not deceived, this was no mythical monster. It was the bear.
What was to be done? The passage was narrow, the bear apparently all but upon them.
“Here!” With hands that trembled slightly, Johnny filled a paper sack with charcoal, then thrust a length of fuse into it.
“Here. Give me that jug.” Tipping the jug on one side he saturated the charcoal in the paper bag with liquid air. After that, drawing on heavy mittens, he pressed the mixture into a solid mass.
Donald was trembling from head to foot but Johnny was calm. He stared straight ahead toward the spot where the bear at any second might appear.
With the roar of the enraged bear still ringing in his ears, Johnny calmly lighted the fuse leading to the sack of liquid air and charcoal.
The fuse sputtered and flashed. It was a fairly long fuse. Would it last thirty seconds? Longer perhaps. Johnny felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle and rise. It was a tense moment. Before him was the bear, behind, a narrow passage and at his feet that strange explosive, liquid air and carbon.
“It will,” Donald, his companion, replied. Then, as if awaking to a new and terrible danger, he fairly shouted in Johnny’s ear, “Come on! Run! Run for your life!” Without a further word, he turned and fled.
Johnny, who understood not at all, stood still watching that fuse grow shorter and shorter.
Then came the bear. With tongue lolling, white teeth all agleam, he came roaring out of the shadows. Johnny turned as if about to flee. Then, remembering that a bear was fast, that in that narrow passageway, he had no chance, he turned resolutely about.
The bear, apparently catching a glimpse of that sputtering spark of fire, reared himself on his hind legs. With a sudden inspiration, Johnny seized the bag of strange explosives and hurled it at the bear. To his vast surprise, he saw the bear catch it neatly between his steel-like jaws.