It was nearing March, but deep snow still covered the hills up in the North country, and there were, as yet, scant signs of spring; not even a bird was to be seen, excepting occasionally a solitary crow. When the sun shone out in the middle of the day, the brown fence tops began to show above the white drifts down in the clearings. By night the freezing cold returned; everything froze up solid, and upon the snow crusts which were thick and glossy it was just the best kind of slide.
There were other important things for boys to think about besides fun and tobogganing; it was just the right sort of weather to begin making maple sugar. For when it freezes hard, then thaws, the sap will run; so up near the lumber camps, where Dick and Joe lived, the sugar season was commencing. Several miles beyond the camps upon the side of a wild mountain, rightly called Lone Mountain, grew a great forest of maples. The spot was too far away for most of the campers to bother about sugar making, but Dick and Joe did not mind distances, and as all the spending money which the boys had they were expected to earn for themselves, they were only too glad to have the privilege of tapping the maples on Lone Mountain. Even before the sap began to flow, they had actually counted over the money they would earn with their sugar and had really spent almost every cent.
They whittled out hundreds of fine ash spills to run the sap, then borrowed every crock and pail their mother could spare from the camp to hold it, besides two great black iron kettles, which they would set over an arch built of large flat stones, where they would boil their syrup. After packing provisions and all their outfit upon a sledge, off they started for Lone Mountain, a day's journey from camp.
Wild and lonely enough was Lone Mountain, a kind of scary spot at best for two boys to camp out alone, but they were not at all afraid, for they were used to wild places: having lived so long in the great spruce forests they felt quite at home. Several years before, they had found the remains of an old sugar house standing in the maple grove on the mountain below a great overhanging crag. Here they would live, and boil the sap outside the shack. After tapping their trees, they drove in the spills, hanging the buckets beneath. As fast as the sap collected they had to boil it, or it would soon sour and be wasted. So, as you can well imagine, both boys were kept very busy, collecting sap, keeping up fires under the great iron kettles, watching the boiling sugar, and testing it upon the snow to find out when it was boiled enough. When night came they were very tired, but they kept at their sugar making as long as the sap continued to run from the trees. They had been on Lone Mountain over a week. With the continued thawings and freezing, the sap kept on running, and the boys were glad, for it meant a fine lot of sugar and they were greatly elated over their good luck. They would carry back more sugar to camp than ever before.
"If we can only have two days more like to-day's run of sap, we'd make a pile of money this year," spoke Dick happily; "we could buy two fine overcoats, and have something toward our new sugaring outfit that we talked with father about buying."
"Yes, I know; great!" replied Joe, as he ladled out a great waxy spoonful of amber sugar upon a pan of snow, and after it had cooled a bit divided it with Dick.
"Bully, ain't it?" said Dick, cleaning off the spoon. "Best we ever made—fine and white; it'll fetch top price. But say, we could make it still better if we only had a new up-to-date outfit. We've got to get it somehow, I guess, even if we don't buy new coats this year; guess our old ones will go another year; we ain't dudes."
Sure enough, that day, to the delight of the boys, another thaw came and the sap ran as it never had done before and kept them jumping well to save it all.
"One of us will have to stay awake and tend fires and watch to-night. We can't finish up anyhow, and we can't afford to waste all this sap. I'll boil all night," said Dick, tucking the embers in around the great kettle.
"You won't tend alone. If you stay up all night I shall too," said Joe stoutly. "Guess we're partners on this sugar making, ain't we?"
"Of course. Tell you what we will do: I'll tend till midnight, while you sleep, then you can work the rest of the night while I sleep," suggested Dick. To which his brother agreed willingly.
The boys ate their supper, boiling their eggs in sap, and finishing up with brown bread spread thickly with soft, new maple sugar. And oh, how fine it tasted to the two tired boys. Soon Joe was fast asleep in the shack upon his fragrant bed of balsam boughs, rolled up in an old patchwork quilt his mother had made him take, for it always grows bitterly cold in the mountains before morning. Dick grinned to himself, as he worked alone and heard Joe's tired snores coming from the shack, and he made up his mind to let him sleep after midnight and get well rested. He kept very busy himself tending the bubbling syrup in both kettles and bringing firewood. It was somewhat lonely off up there in the mountain, now there was no one to talk to, thought Joe to himself. The wind sighed and whined in the tops of the spruces. Occasionally he heard a mysterious crack upon the snow crusts, off in the woods, where some hoof or paw broke through. Finally, an old owl began its lonely hoot above the shack somewhere, and once he heard a long, whimpering yell, far across the valley. He knew what that meant; a lynx was abroad, venturing down into the clearings after a sheep perhaps. Joe looked back into the shack rather longingly after the lynx yelled; he was almost tempted to awaken Dick, but decided, unselfishly, not to.
At last, long after midnight, Joe himself began to feel extremely worn out and sleepy. A great stillness had settled over everything; even the wind seemed to soothe him to drowsiness, while the sap bubbled and blubbered softly and monotonously in the iron kettles. In spite of all he could do, Joe's tired eyes closed together, and, untended, the fires under the black kettles burned lower and lower.
Out beyond the camp, breaking through the snow crusts, unheard, stole a huge, black, shambling figure, closely followed by two smaller ones. A great black mother bear and her two very young cubs, and she was heading them straight for the boys' sugar camp. The cubs were so young they had difficulty in keeping up with their mother, for they were tired. It had been a long distance down from the den, but the mother bear did not spare them, and kept nosing them along impatiently when they halted along the trail. Now if there is one thing on earth a bear loves even more than honey it is maple sugar. The scent of the boiling syrup arose even above the woody, odours, and delicious enough it seemed to the old bear; she was eager to reach the camp.
At last the little trio came out into a small clearing surrounding the shack. The old bear halted, warily, but all was now silent. Inside the shack lay one boy fast asleep, rolled in his patchwork quilt, while half leaning against a tree slept another. The sugar had ceased to bubble and heave in the great kettles, for the fires were almost out. Between the kettles shuffled the old bear, followed by the cubs, whimpering wearily and crossly. The old bear arose upon her hind feet snuffing and grunting, but never offering to disturb the sleeping boys; all she cared............