Chapter Six
Nancy's heart nearly stopped beating as she looked, terrified, into the ferocious mouth of the bear, its teeth gleaming yellow against the darkness of its throat. For a moment, like a slow-motion scene in a horror movie, the bear seemed to tower over them, claws outstretched, mouth open, roaring.
Ned and Sammy were a dozen paces away, picking berries. Ned looked up, horror in his eyes. "Get back, Nancy!" he shouted.
"Ned!" Sammy cried as Ned crept toward Nancy. "Don't leave me!" She lunged for him, and they both fell sideways into the berry bushes.
"Scat! Shoo! Beat it! Get out of here, you stupid bear!" Suddenly Max was in front of Nancy and Bess, between them and the bear, clapping his hands and shouting. He snatched off his cap and flapped it under the bear's astonished nose. "Scram! Shoo! Go!"
For a moment, the bear hesitated. Then its surprise turned to panic and it wheeled, dropped to all fours, and loped off into the bushes without a backward look.
"Wow!" Bess sank down weakly onto a nearby boulder and mopped her forehead with the tail of her blouse. Her face was white. "I have never been so scared in all my life!"
Nancy let out the breath she had been holding. "Me, neither!" she said.
"Are you all right?" George rushed up, looking anxious.
"Max saved us," Bess whispered, gazing at him adoringly. "He scared a grizzly bear away just by yelling at it."
"That wasn't any grizzly," Max said as Tod dashed up, panting, "And it wasn't very big, either. When you're scared, things have a way of seeming bigger than they are. It was just an ordinary black bear, probably no more than a yearling, taking a morning sunbath and a berry break at the same time." He laughed. "When it comes right down to it, we're the ones who are trespassing. This is his berry patch, you know."
"I wish I'd been there," Tod said. He glanced at Max. "That ol' bear wouldn't have been able to walk away when I got through with him."
"Don't be stupid," Max snapped. "You don't want to go messing around with bears—not with that toy knife of yours."
Nancy stepped between them. "We're just glad this is all over," she said, interrupting Tod. "And that nobody got hurt."
Tod threw them a baleful look and turned angrily away. "You think you're so smart," Nancy heard him say under his breath as he stormed past her.
She stared after him, puzzled. Was his remark aimed at her or at Max?
Bess looked around. "Where's Ned?" she exclaimed. "I heard him shouting just a moment ago, but I haven't seen him since before the bear attacked."
"Here I am," Ned said. He limped up to them, covered with scratches. Sammy was still sitting in the berry bushes with a sullen look on her face. "I tried to help, but I didn't quite make it." He threw a disgusted look over his shoulder at Sammy. "I'm sorry," he said.
Nancy couldn't help chuckling. "By the looks of you, you'd have been better off meeting up with the bear."
Ned flashed a weak smile, then grew red-faced. Nancy knew he was embarrassed about Sammy, and that it was time to help him feel better about what had happened.
"That's okay," she said comfortingly. "It's the thought that counts. I know you would have helped if you could have."
Ned came closer. "Forgiven?" he asked softly.
"Nothing to forgive," Nancy replied, and Ned's face broke into a wide grin. Sammy scrambled to her feet and walked away without a word, her face stormy. Nancy looked after her. She didn't think Sammy was the kind to bear a grudge, but it might not be a bad idea to keep an eye on her.
Max called for attention. "Listen, kids, when you're out in the woods, make a lot of noise to let the bears and other big animals know that you're not trying to sneak up on them. If you happen to surprise a mama bear when she's out for a stroll with her cub, or if you manage to get between a mama and her cub, you're asking to have a tremendous bite taken out of you."
"Is that how you got that scar on your face?" Bess asked curiously. "A bear?"
Max ran his hand across his jaw. "No," he said brusquely. "I got it in a rafting accident." He picked his cap up off the ground and jammed it on his head. "Got to go see how lunch is coming along," he said, and left.
Bess looked longingly after him. "I wonder what kind of accident it was," she said with a sigh. "I'll bet he rescued somebody, or something like that."
"Well, it's obviously something he doesn't want to talk about," Nancy said. It concerned her that Bess was developing a giant crush on Max—the kind of crush that could easily blind her to the real person.
Apprehensively, Nancy remembered how Mike and Tod had implied that there might be something wrong with Max's raft-handling abilities.
"Listen, Bess," Nancy said, as they started together down the path to the river. "I need to say something to you about Max."
"Isn't he wonderful?" Bess asked with a dreamy look in her eyes, her words bubbling over. "You know, I wasn't sold on this trip in the beginning. But now, well, you should see Max handle the oars on that raft, Nan. He knows exactly what he's doing. And those muscles—wow!"
Nancy gave her a cautioning look. "You know, Bess, maybe it isn't a good idea to let yourself fall head-over-heels for this guy. There are some pretty weird things going on on this trip, and Max could be involved in them."
"He isn't that kind of person," Bess said flatly. "He saved us from the bear, remember? I mean, he could have let the bear attack us, and that would have taken care of us for good."
Nancy flung up her hands in confusion. "I don't know. Maybe the bear wasn't part of the plan, and he just reacted spontaneously. Or maybe I'm entirely wrong and he's not involved at all. But there's something awfully strange here, and I don't want you to get hurt, that's all."
They reached the end of the trail, where it opened out onto the sandy beach. "Well, I appreciate your concern for my feelings," Bess said huffily, "but I'm a big girl now. I think I can be trusted to know what's good for me and what isn't. I—"
Nancy put a hand on Bess's arm. "Shh," she said. The rafts had been pulled up on the deserted beach about ten yards ahead. Everybody else was off picking berries or making lunch farther down the beach, or walking in the woods. Everyone except Mercedes. She was bent over the pile of gear stowed in the middle of Paula's raft.
"What's she doing there?" Bess wondered. "Hey! She's going through someone's pack."
But Nancy was already on the beach, marching forward. "That's not anybody's pack," she said grimly. "She's going through mine!"
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