A mist clung to the dense forest like blue-gray ghosts in the trees. The Monday morning sun hadn't quite cleared the Great Smoky Mountains. It was light, but still night-cool in the valley clearing high in an isolated area of eastern Tennessee.

Frank Hardy's brown eyes focused intently. About fifty yards ahead, a large black bear stood up on its hind legs. Its head rolled back and forth, and a rumbling roar filled the air.

As Frank watched, the bear stepped from side to side, and then dropped back down to all four paws. The animal started to run slowly toward Frank, then abruptly broke into a terrifying gallop.

The bear's furry legs revolved almost like wheels. The ground vibrated, and the pounding of the paws reminded Frank of a drumroll. The animal barreled toward Frank, but Frank didn't flinch. He stood his ground.

"Easy, Gus." Gene Posten's voice spoke up from behind Frank, who turned his head toward the man. "Slow down, boy." Gene dropped his arm and pointed to the ground. The bear slowed and finally skidded to a stop.

"Whew," Frank said, releasing his breath in one whoosh. His heart skipped with exhilaration.

"Good job, Gus," Gene said. Gus dropped back to a sitting position. "You, too, Frank," Gene added.

Gene was a tall man -- Frank guessed six-four -- with brown wavy hair. His leather jacket was the same shiny jet black as Gus's fur.

"Remember, bears have no interest in humans as meat," Gene said, continuing his training. "They attack to defend their territory, to protect their family, or to assert their dominance." Gene swung his arm up, and Gus leaned his head way back and made a throaty chuckling noise.

"In Gus's case, the danger is in playing. Bears like to push things for fun. In the wild, bears spend time just pushing rocks around. When Gus pushes you, you can break. So just tell him, 'No,' and sweep your arm to the right. That's his signal to stop. Now give him some treats."

Frank tossed out a handful of fish sticks, which Gus ate with one large, sticky lapping of his thick brown tongue.

"Too bad Jumper Herman didn't have someone around to stop the bears in their tracks," Joe Hardy said, joining them. Seventeen-year-old Joe was a year younger than his brother, Frank. Gus rolled his head back and forth to welcome Joe. Joe shook his own head in a return greeting.

"Definitely," Gene's cousin Lloyd Hyser answered, patting Gus's enormous shoulder. Lloyd's hair was blond like Joe's, but straight and short.

Lloyd and Gene were both in their early thirties and owned an animal rescue farm in Tennessee. They provided a care and "retirement" facility for large animals abandoned as pets or show animals.

The two men often trained and provided animal actors for safe and humane movie work. In the film industry, the men were known as animal wranglers. They were in the Smokies to provide a mountain lion -- Omar -- and a bear -- Gus -- for a major adventure feature movie, Dropped into Danger, based on Jumper Herman's story. Friends of the Hardys, the two wranglers had invited the boys to work on the film with them.

"So you think a bear might have had something to do with Herman's disappearance?" Gene asked Joe.

"Well, the way I understand the story," Joe said, "is that Jake Herman stole a huge collection of small archaeological treasures, right? Old coins, ancient gold jewelry, stuff like that."

"Right," Gene agreed. "He was thirty years old, and the robbery happened in Canada about twenty-five years ago."

"Then he flew his own small plane across the border," Frank added, remembering what he'd read in the movie script the night before, "smuggling all the loot into the United States."

"His plane supposedly crashed here in the Great Smoky Mountains," Joe said, "and he was never seen again. Maybe he finally met his match with a bear."

"But don't forget," Frank said. "Jumper was famous for pulling off daring crimes and never being caught for any of them. In fact, he got the nickname Jumper because he was a daring parachutist in the army. Maybe he ditched before the crash and has been living off the loot ever since."

"They found a few traces of his leather bag, but not the million dollars' worth of loot that was in it," Gene pointed out. "Who knows what happened. Maybe the movie will supply some answers."

"You guys have been here a couple of days," Lloyd said to Frank and Joe. "How do you like the work so far?"

"Outstanding," Joe answered. "Working with Gus and Omar is fun by itself. Working on a major movie will make it even better."

"Then let's go to work," Gene said. He handed each of the Hardys a worn suede bomber jacket and a wide-brimmed leather safari hat.

"Remember, you're in charge of the cooler containing food rewards," Lloyd added. "There's a list in the barn of who gets what and a shooting schedule for each animal. While we're at the shoot, you'll follow along in the script and help us with our cues."

"And anything we might need," Gene chimed in.

"The main thing to realize is that moviemaking isn't as glamorous as most people think," Lloyd pointed out. "It's mostly a waiting game. Hours of sitting around and waiting, and then a few minutes of work and intense concentration."

"None of us is on call every day," Gene said. "If you're not needed for wrangling, feel free to sign up as acting extras. That can be fun."

The four worked and trained the rest of the morning and afternoon. They were preparing for an evening shoot at a location set farther up the mountain. When they finished, Gene and Lloyd took Gus back to his traveling trailer, while Frank and Joe went to the barn next to it.

"This is a perfect setup," Frank said to his brother. Part of the film was being shot in the tiny mountain town of Crosscook and the surrounding countryside. So the movie studio had set up headquarters there.

The cast and crew stayed in town, in private homes, inns, and elaborate RVs. The animal wranglers and other stunt crew, security personnel, and administration staff stayed in small steel prefabricated houses that the studio had brought in and set up at the edge of town. All together the houses looked like an army barracks or a small campground.

"It is a perfect setup," Joe agreed. "The animals have their own familiar traveling trailers. And we've got this old barn to store the equipment and feed."

"And to use for rehearsing," Frank added as he watched Gene walk Gus up a ramp into the bear's trailer. Omar's trailer was parked nearby.

The Hardys packed the food that would be given to Gus while he worked. Then they walked about thirty yards from the barn and trailers to the house that the wranglers and the Hardys shared. At four-thirty they all changed into fresh jeans and shirts and began packing up for the short drive farther up the mountain.

"We've learned to take both trucks," Lloyd told them. "Gene and I will drive one and pull Gus's trailer. You two take the other."

Frank drove the second wrangler truck, following Gene out of the compound and up the mountainside.

They arrived at the location set in a large clearing in the mountain forest. At one end of the clearing was the plane crash set. On another section of the location was a copy of the isolated cabin where Jumper had supposedly hidden out for years. The shoot that evening would focus on scenes of Jumper's daughter searching for her father.

The wranglers parked their vehicles. While Gene checked on Gus, Lloyd showed the Hardys around. When they reached the edge of a ravine, they saw a man in a blue jumpsuit adjusting an elaborate rigging hanging from a crane.

"Terry!" Lloyd yelled. "I heard you were going to be on this shoot. Great working with you again."

The man left the crane setup and walked over. He appeared to be in his late twenties and had the compact, muscular body of a trained athlete. He had large dark eyes and was completely bald.

"Frank, Joe, this is Terry Lavring, one of the greatest stunt masters you'll ever work with," Lloyd said.

"Nice to meet you," Terry said. "Lloyd, you look scratched and bruised as usual. Where's Gene?"

"He's getting our bear settled," Lloyd said. "At least my wounds come from a reasonable source -- a wild animal. Yours all happen because you insist on setting yourself on fire or jumping off buildings or whatever."

"Hey, once a chute cowboy, always a chute cowboy," Terry said, shrugging his shoulders.

"That's a stuntman who started out by jumping with parachutes," Lloyd explained to the Hardys.

"Now Terry's a master," Gene said, joining them. "Designs and creates incredible illusions."

"A true master," a familiar voice said. Everyone turned to see the beautiful face of Cleo Alexander. She gazed at them with large blue eyes, a surprising color because her hair, a short curly cap, was very dark brown.

Terry introduced everybody. "I'm sure you know this young lady from her Olympic gymnastic glory days and her two sports films. I've worked with her, and I'm telling you she's going to be a real movie star. And this is the film that will do it. She's playing Jumper's daughter, who goes to search for her dad when she's grown. Wait till you see what she's going to do. It'll knock you dead."

Cleo flashed a huge sparkling smile. "I hate to interrupt you all, but I really need to talk to you about the stunt, Terry." She seemed nervous.

"No problem," the stunt master said. "Okay, everybody -- talk to you later."

The Hardys and the wranglers left Terry and Cleo and strolled around the set. "She's the one in the scene with Gus, right?" Joe asked.

"Yep," Gene answered. "The script has Gus chasing her. Let's get the fence coil unloaded. We need one of you to give us a hand."

"I'll do it," Joe offered.

"Have I got time to look around?" Frank asked.

"Sure," Lloyd said. "We've got about an hour before we need to set up."

Frank took a trail up the mountain to an observation area where others were seated on logs and benches. He looked back down on the clearing. The mountainside teemed with the activity of preparing for a movie shoot.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" a woman about forty years old said, plopping down next to him. "This is my fourth movie, and I never get tired of it."

"Are you an actress?" Frank asked, then introduced himself.

"Oh, my, no," she said. "I'm Sassy Leigh, a folklore professor at a college not far from here. I'm a consultant on the film because I'm considered sort of an expert on the legend of Jumper Herman."

Sassy was a pretty woman. She had a mane of hair streaked with several colors of dark red and gold. Her green eyes stared intently at Frank, as if she were trying to figure out his legend.

"I've read only a little about him," Frank said. "What's your expert conclusion about what happened?"

"Well, there are certainly lots of theories," Sassy said. "Some think Jumper survived and has been happily mocking the international authorities ever since.

"One of the most popular rumors has Jumper meeting his fate with the Great Smoky Mountains version of Bigfoot," Sassy continued.

"There's a Smokies Bigfoot?" Frank asked.

"Oh, yes," she said. "They've had lots of sightings hereabouts."

"He's been written into the script, I'll bet," Frank said.

"Of course," Sassy said, smiling proudly. "I helped write that part." She smoothed the green sweater she wore over her jeans.

The sun dropped into the mist clinging to the blue-green ridge beyond, and the temperature seemed to drop a degree every minute.

"Well, I'd better get back to--" Frank's words stopped in his throat as a high scream tore through the cool mountain air from the set below.

Sassy's head whipped around. "What was that?" she asked. She sounded scared.

"Let's find out," Frank said. He and Sassy headed back down the trail with everyone else who had been sitting around them. After a few yards Frank left the crowd and raced through the meadow grass and mountain scrub that skirted the dense forest.

When he reached the forest that stood between him and the set, he decided to run around it. It was getting darker and he knew the dense forest could be a mazelike trap.

As he ran along the edge of the forest, a peculiar smell drifted toward his nostrils. It was a sour, gamy, sweaty odor. Whew, Frank thought as the odor grew stronger. Smells like a cross between a zoo and the gym after a really rough basketball practice.

He could hear shouts ahead on the set. He stepped up his pace, running beside the huge trees. But he was distracted again by the odd smell and by a rustling from inside the forest. He decided that something must be running through the trees -- running in the same direction he was, but four or five yards away on a parallel path.

He looked to his left, squinting to get a better view into the darkness of the forest. There were lots of shadowy shapes in there, and some of them seemed to move. And lots of crackling, whistling, whining sounds. Were they made by tree branches bending in the wind, Frank wondered. Or maybe the family of deer he had seen earlier bounding across the meadow?

It was the sudden rush toward him that caught him off guard -- the huge form bursting from between two trees. Frank didn't have a chance. There was no warning, no time for defense. A beefy arm swung out of the large smelly mass in a huge arc.