A Tent in Agony / Stephen Crane

A SULLIVAN COUNTY TALE

Four men once came to a wet place in the roadless forest to fish. They

pitched their tent fair upon the brow of a pine-clothed ridge of riven

rocks whence a bowlder could be made to crash through the brush and

whirl past the trees to the lake below. On fragrant hemlock boughs they

slept the sleep of unsuccessful fishermen, for upon the lake alternately

the sun made them lazy and the rain made them wet. Finally they ate the

last bit of bacon and smoked and burned the last fearful and wonderful

hoecake.

Immediately a little man volunteered to stay and hold the camp while the

remaining three should go the Sullivan county miles to a farmhouse for

supplies. They gazed at him dismally. "There's only one of you--the

devil make a twin," they said in parting malediction, and disappeared

down the hill in the known direction of a distant cabin. When it came

night and the hemlocks began to sob they had not returned. The little

man sat close to his companion, the campfire, and encouraged it with

logs. He puffed fiercely at a heavy built brier, and regarded a thousand

shadows which were about to assault him. Suddenly he heard the approach

of the unknown, crackling the twigs and rustling the dead leaves. The

little man arose slowly to his feet, his clothes refused to fit his

back, his pipe dropped from his mouth, his knees smote each other.

"Hah!" he bellowed hoarsely in menace. A growl replied and a bear paced

into the light of the fire. The little man supported himself upon a

sapling and regarded his visitor.

The bear was evidently a veteran and a fighter, for the black of his

coat had become tawny with age. There was confidence in his gait and

arrogance in his small, twinkling eye. He rolled back his lips and

disclosed his white teeth. The fire magnified the red of his mouth. The

little man had never before confronted the terrible and he could not

wrest it from his breast. "Hah!" he roared. The bear interpreted this as

the challenge of a gladiator. He approached warily. As he came near, the

boots of fear were suddenly upon the little man's feet. He cried out and

then darted around the campfire. "Ho!" said the bear to himself, "this

thing won't fight--it runs. Well, suppose I catch it." So upon his

features there fixed the animal look of going--somewhere. He started

intensely around the campfire. The little man shrieked and ran

furiously. Twice around they went.

The hand of heaven sometimes falls heavily upon the righteous. The bear

gained.

In desperation the little man flew into the tent. The bear stopped and

sniffed at the entrance. He scented the scent of many men. Finally he

ventured in.

The little man crouched in a distant corner. The bear advanced,

creeping, his blood burning, his hair erect, his jowls dripping. The

little man yelled and rustled clumsily under the flap at the end of the

tent. The bear snarled awfully and made a jump and a grab at his

disappearing game. The little man, now without the tent, felt a

tremendous paw grab his coat tails. He squirmed and wriggled out of his

coat like a schoolboy in the hands of an avenger. The bear bowled

triumphantly and jerked the coat into the tent and took two bites, a

punch and a hug before he, discovered his man was not in it. Then he

grew not very angry, for a bear on a spree is not a black-haired pirate.

He is merely a hoodlum. He lay down on his back, took the coat on his

four paws and began to play uproariously with it. The most appalling,

blood-curdling whoops and yells came to where the little man was crying

in a treetop and froze his blood. He moaned a little speech meant for a

prayer and clung convulsively to the bending branches. He gazed with

tearful wistfulness at where his comrade, the campfire, was giving dying

flickers and crackles. Finally, there was a roar from the tent which

eclipsed all roars; a snarl which it seemed would shake the stolid

silence of the mountain and cause it to shrug its granite shoulders. The

little man quaked and shrivelled to a grip and a pair of eyes. In the

glow of the embers he saw the white tent quiver and fall with a crash.

The bear's merry play had disturbed the center pole and brought a chaos

of canvas upon his head.

Now the little man became the witness of a mighty scene. The tent began

to flounder. It took flopping strides in the direction of the lake.

Marvellous sounds came from within--rips and tears, and great groans and

pants. The little man went into giggling hysterics.

The entangled monster failed to extricate himself before he had walloped

the tent frenziedly to the edge of the mountain. So it came to pass that

three men, clambering up the hill with bundles and baskets, saw their

tent approaching. It seemed to them like a white-robed phantom pursued

by hornets. Its moans riffled the hemlock twigs.

The three men dropped their bundles and scurried to one side, their eyes

gleaming with fear. The canvas avalanche swept past them. They leaned,

faint and dumb, against trees and listened, their blood stagnant. Below

them it struck the base of a great pine tree, where it writhed and

struggled. The three watched its convolutions a moment and then started

terrifically for the top of the hill. As they disappeared, the bear cut

loose with a mighty effort. He cast one dishevelled and agonized look at

the white thing, and then started wildly for the inner recesses of the

forest.

The three fear-stricken individuals ran to the rebuilt fire. The little

man reposed by it calmly smoking. They sprang at him and overwhelmed him

with interrogations. He contemplated darkness and took a long, pompous

puff. "There's only one of me--and the devil made a twin," he said.