Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1901-04-20

l6CkeI Oh kTccu anu Oio"H' ~ ~
ford hills rose high and beautiful. one
on top of another, In the sultry at
mosphere. Mary's father was a hard
listed, hard headed. round shOuldered
old farmer who had done what many
fail to do. He had made farming pay.
His crops were everywhere abundant.
He had bank account. His neighb0rs
called him prosperous. But the old
school Of farmers said he was a fool
to have sent Mary to college. When
she brought her wheel. her tennis
things and her golf sticks back with
her he was almost afraid he had been.
She seemed to him to have lost all the
gimp that had characterized her as a
young girl. She had acquired cul-
ture that the old man did not under
stand.
1t did him good. though, when she
rolled the sleeves from her muscular
white arms and dOused them in her
mothers wash tubs the first Monday
after her arrival. But when she
asked him for twenty-five dollars to
buy q golf dress ii floored him.
1t was at supper few nights after
he had refused point blank to give her
the money. that he was grumbling
about how a big black bear from
somewhere up in the mountains was
running his young corn.
He'll spoil hundred dollars worth
of stuff before the season is through.
durn him. exclaimed the old farmer.
why don't you get after him with
a gum" asked his wife.
Il couldn't hit him. and wounded
IL
the farmer.
Better offer a reward" said Mary,
suddenly taking an interest in the
matter.
Reward. I'd give thirty five dollars
for that crittur's petit"
Write it down. papa. Write ii
down and post it on the barn door.
Some young fellow will make try for
it,"
Mary laughingly brought out paper
and pencil. and a little after the sign
was on the gray. weather beaten
door.
The next morning. long before the
sun was looking over the spruce COW
cred top of Streaked Mountain. a
solitary figure was climbing up the
ragged side of the hill back of the
Hudson farm. Far up among these
hills was wild gorge where for gem
erations the bears had lived in COM
parative security. They descended to
the valleys now and then for young
sheep, or to break down and eat the
green corn along the meadows. Mary
knew that the Maine bear liked best to
get out in the morning before the sun
was up. and to visit corn fields ere the
crows had begun calling from the pine
trees in the pasture. She was ahead of
the bears this time. for it was not vet
light. The path she was following
was one that the wood choppers used
sometimes in the winter, and that only
the foxes and the bears used in sum-
mer.
She wore her bicycle suit. the one
her father had turned up his nose at,
and that had so shocked her mother
Over her arm was a trim little rifle
she had borrowed the night before
from the hired man of a neighboring
farm
Around her waist was cartridge
belt. When Mary went away from
the farm to school, she was afraid of
a gun. She had never fired one.
While at college one of the gymna stun
drills was a military performance.
and the girls had got used to their
guns and had gone out forenoons once
week for shooting matches Lying
on her face behind a shooting box she
had made good targets with an army
rifle at distance of two hundred
yards and now believed she could
handle Winchester repeater with
equal skill.
The dew on the sparkling grass wet
her feet to the skin. The silvery spider
webs on the weeds were covered with
dampness. The wild roses held dia-
monds in their red blossoms. and deli
cate moOnstOnes chung to the tips of
the snapdragon weed. The wild shrubs
everywhere were in blossom.
Dainty little ferns sprung up and
shook water at her from among the
rocks. Her cheeks We're red with The
climbing. and her breath was hard in
spite of the exercise she had been
used to in the gym. With every foot
she advanced into the gorge the place
became wilder and wilder. Huge
rocks rose on every side. The gaunt
spruces and hemlOcks souShed in Inc
wind as she hurried along. Now and
"
had shaken the dew from the shrubs
as they prowled the previous night.
The sun was now up and she had
seen nothing of the bear. Suddenly
the ravine came to an end against a
wall OF solid rock. Lying against the
upper end of the canyon was the white
skeleton of a COW. She remembered
that she had heard her father tell of a
heifer that had escaped from the pas
lures few years before and had
gone wild in the woods. and had
probably wandered into this dismal
place and either starved in the winter
or was killed by animals wilder than
herself The glistening bones made
her flesh creep and she started to re-
trace her steps.
Half Il mile down the ravine she
came to a place where a fallen tree lay
across the ragged trail. The path
way ran under 1t. She stopped to
look at the underside and saw there
were black hairs caught in the rough
bark where an animal had squeezed
under.
Here was her chance, Under this
log the bears, returning from the corn
fields below would pass. She looked
around for Il point of vantage. A
little distance away was fiat shelf
OF rock ten feet above the valley and
to be reached by scramblng up the