The boys each possessed themselves of the arm of one of the girls and hurried them to the boat. They put them aboard, rapidly untied the rope that held the _Water Sprite_, and themselves jumped in.
Then with a united push they sent the _Water Sprite_ away from the bank, Jack started the engine going faster than he ever had before, and in a moment more they were fifty feet out on the lake.
Then only did they dare to draw breath.
It was perhaps lucky for them that Belle had dropped her basket right in the path of the bear. The piles of luscious fruit that had rolled out proved a temptation too strong to resist. He nuzzled into them luxuriously, and when he raised his head his nose looked as though it were dripping with paint.
They had a good view of him now, and they shuddered as they saw what a large and s.h.a.ggy specimen he was. The bear looked at them too and snarled as if with disappointment at their escape.
"Beauty, isn"t he?" demanded Paul.
"Looks like a nightmare to me," observed Walter.
"How lucky that Belle saw him first and gave warning," said Cora. "It would have been nice, wouldn"t it, to have been sitting at lunch and have looked up to see him standing beside us?"
"I know what it means now to have your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth," said Belle, who was pale and shaken. "I thought I never would be able to scream."
The bear resumed his shambling gait and meandered leisurely down to the pile of fish.
"The robber!" groaned Walter. "He"ll clean up the pile. To think I"ve been cooking for that old reprobate!"
"You ought to take it as a compliment," said Jack. "Just see how the old thief is wading into them."
The fish were indeed disappearing with magical rapidity.
"He"s a magician," said Jack. "He"s making mutton of fish."
"It"s well enough to joke," murmured Bess. "But what will we do if he eats all the rest of our lunch?"
"We"ll have to grin and bear it," said Paul, whose disposition to pun could not be overcome.
"Perhaps he"ll be satisfied with the fish and leave the rest of the food alone," remarked Cora hopefully.
"You"re a cheerful optimist," replied her brother. "You don"t know much about a bear"s appet.i.te. Besides, he must be awfully hungry, otherwise he would run away-bears usually do."
"Oh, if I only had a rifle here!" said Paul.
"A dynamite bomb would be good enough for me," growled Walter.
"Haven"t we anything on board we can soak him with?" groaned Jack.
"Nothing much, except some loose bolts and nuts in the locker," answered Cora, "and they wouldn"t do any good, except perhaps to aggravate him."
"It might get his mind off the rest of the lunch, anyway," replied her brother. "Let"s get a handful, fellows, and bombard the old brigand."
They were all smarting for revenge, and they equipped themselves with the missiles and began to throw. Several of them hit the bear, but he paid no attention.
"We"re too far off," said Walter. "The force of the bolts is spent before they get to him. Back up a little closer to the sh.o.r.e, Jack, and we"ll have a better chance."
"Do you think we"d better?" asked Belle. "He might get stirred up and come after us. Bears are good swimmers, you know."
"He couldn"t catch a motor boat in a thousand years," replied Jack. "If it were a rowboat now, it might be different."
He backed up until the boat was within ten feet of the sh.o.r.e. Walter threw a bolt with such accurate aim that it caught the bear right on the end of his nose.
He reared up with an ugly roar, and his little eyes shot flames of fire at his adversaries.
He offered a fair mark as he stood erect, and Jack had an inspiration.
Hanging over the side of the _Water Sprite_ was one of the life-preservers, the round type, a circle with a very large opening in the center, so that it could be easily slipped over the head.
Jack s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and threw it with the motion of a quoit-thrower. It covered the short intervening distance and went over the bear"s head, settling on his neck and looking for all the world like a gigantic ruff.
It gave the animal a most grotesque appearance, and the spectators roared with laughter.
It was easier for it to go on than it was for the bear to get it off, and his antics were comical as he rubbed his head against the trees and, failing in that, took his paws to it. He succeeded at last, but his naturally surly nature had not been improved by the operation, and the instant the life-preserver was dislodged, he rushed to the edge of the sh.o.r.e and plunged into the water.
The action was so sudden that the party was taken by surprise. The girls screamed, and the boys had to do some quick work to get the _Water Sprite_ under way. They succeeded, however, and once the engine was going, it was an easy matter to keep out of the bear"s reach, although for so clumsy a creature he swam with amazing swiftness.
They could have distanced him without trouble, but with deliberate purpose Jack kept just far enough ahead of him to encourage him in thinking that he might overtake his quarry. In this way, he drew him down along the sh.o.r.e of the lake for more than half a mile. By that time, Bruin"s ardor had cooled and his strength began to fail. He gave a wrathful snort and made for the sh.o.r.e.
The instant he did so, Jack turned the boat about and made all speed back to the place where they had been surprised.
"Now"s our chance, fellows," he said. "We can get there long before the bear does, even if he makes a bee line for it as soon as he gets to sh.o.r.e. I"ll hold her bow against the bank, while you jump out and gather up the provisions and bring them on board. That thief may have got our fish, but he won"t have the laugh on us altogether."
It was very quick work that Paul and Walter did, for they had no mind to be caught there when the bear should make his way back, as they had no doubt he would. They regained the life preserver, which was so scratched and torn that it was no longer good for its original purpose, but they wanted it as a memento of the adventure.
As the bear had not had time to meddle with the food laid out by the girls, they were not so badly off after all, although it was exasperating to have to go without the fish, whose appetizing aroma was still in the air.
"Just when they were done to a turn, too," said Walter gloomily. "I wish the old rascal had choked on the bones."
Having recovered everything else, even to Aunt Betty"s lunch basket, the picnic party pushed out some distance, and ate their lunch with an appet.i.te that was the keener for their enforced waiting.
They were sure that Bruin"s instinct would lead him straight back to the succulent repast that had been so rudely interrupted, and they were right, for a few minutes later he came loping along and plunged into the remnants of his fish dinner. He glared out over the water at his enemies, but his one experience had been sufficient, and he made no further attempt to take after them. He sniffed around disappointedly at the place where the other eatables had stood, and then lumbered away into the woods.
CHAPTER XXI THE DRIFTING BOAT
"There"s grat.i.tude for you," observed Jack. "We"ve given that bear a perfectly good dinner-even cooked it for him-and the only thanks we get is an attempt to kill us."
"Oh, well," said Paul, "we must forgive the old fellow. Bear and forbear, you know."
"You wouldn"t think it was so funny," remarked Cora, "if he"d gotten away with the rest of the lunch, as well as the fish."
"Even then we needn"t have gone hungry," returned Paul soberly. "The forest preserves are all around us."
"Even in the cities, one needn"t starve if he has a sweet tooth," added Walter. "He always has the subway jams."