And accompanying the sound they caught a loud voice raised in an excited shout, as though some one was striving against difficulties that threatened to overcome him. CHAPTER V WHEN KATE CAME HOME "SOME one is in trouble, Bob!" cried the younger Armstrong boy, as these sounds came floating to their ears. "Yes, and a white man, too," said Bob, as he tossed the bundle of venison up into the crotch of a big oak tree close at hand. "We must see if we can help him." Sandy was nothing loth. He knew full well that the unwritten law of the woods compelled every man to extend assistance when he met with one in need, and from the nature of the racket they could imagine that something quite out of the ordinary must be taking place. The two lads set off on a run, eager to reach the spot as quickly as possible. True, they were rather short of ammunition just then, but so long as a single load remained to their guns they were ready to use it in behalf of any one in distress. "Listen, brother," said Sandy, when they had covered some little distance; "surely we have heard that voice before." [Illustration: "KICKING FURIOUSLY AT A LEAN BLACK BEAR, JUST BELOW HIM."] "Yes," returned Bob, with a little laugh, "it is our old friend, Pat O'Mara, without a doubt; but what can he have stumbled into now? Pat is always looking for a 'ruction,' as he calls it, and generally finding what he wants." "Perhaps the wolves, after leaving us, may have treed him," suggested Sandy, with something like a broad grin appearing on his freckled face. But the other shook his head in the negative. He seldom jumped at conclusions as did Sandy, and usually weighed his words before speaking. "Hardly that, boy," he observed; "we would have heard their howls before this. And besides, we have good reason to know that wolves are arrant cowards in the daytime." "Well, let us run on again, for evidently Pat is in need of help. This may pay him back for dragging me out of that quicksand last summer, when I thought my last hour had arrived," and Sandy once more started on a trot in the direction of the spot whence the shouts arose. Soon another sound mingled with the cries of the Irish trapper. "It must be a bear!" said Sandy over his shoulder, as he ran. Bob was of the same opinion, for the ferocious growls that came down the breeze could surely have been produced by no other among the woods creatures. Then they burst through a thicket, and suddenly came in sight of a spectacle so remarkable that both boys stood still to gape and grin. A rather stout man was sitting up in the wreck of an old tree, kicking furiously at a lean black bear, just below him, that was striking with his claws in the endeavor to fasten upon the legging of the other's foot. While he thus kicked, the man in fringed buckskin was constantly talking, often giving vent to a shout of joy when his foot chanced to land against the head of his hairy enemy.