The Grizzly King by James Oliver Curwood (read aloud books TXT) 📕

The grass an' bushes will be dry then."
It was easy to follow Thor's course after this, for he had hung close to the creek. Within three or four hundred yards of the great mass of boulders where the grizzly had come upon the tan-faced cub was a small copse of spruce in the heart of a grassy dip, and here the hunters stripped and hobbled their horses. Twenty minutes later they had come up cautiously to the soft carpet of sand where Thor and Muskwa had become acquainted. The heavy rain had obliterated the cub's tiny footprints, but the sand was cut up by the grizzly's tracks. The packer's teeth gleamed as he looked at Langdon.
"He ain't very far," he whispered. "Shouldn't wonder if he spent the night pretty close an' he's mooshing on just ahead of us."
He wet a finger and held it above his head to get the wind. He nodded significantly.
"We'd better get up on the slopes," he said.
They made their way around the end of the boulders, holding their guns in readiness, and headed for a small coulee that promised an easy ascent of the first slope. At the mouth of this both paused again. Its bottom was covered with sand, and in this sand were the tracks of another bear. Bruce dropped on his knees.
"It's another grizzly," said Langdon.
"No, it ain't; it's a black," said Bruce. "Jimmy, can't I ever knock into yo'r head the difference between a black an' a grizzly track? This is the hind foot, an' the heel is round. If it was a grizzly it would be pointed. An' it's too broad an' clubby f'r a grizzly, an' the claws are too long f'r the length of the foot. It's a black as plain as the nose on yo'r face!"
"And going our way," said Langdon. "Come on!" Two hundred yards up the coulee the bear had climbed out on the slope. Langdon and Bruce followed. In the thick grass and hard shale of the first crest of the slope the tracks were quickly lost, but the hunters were not much interested in these tracks now. From the height at which they were travelling they had a splendid view below them.
Not once did Bruce take his eyes from the creek bottom. He knew that it was down there they would find the grizzly, and he was interested in nothing else just at present. Langdon, on the other hand, was interested in everything that might be living or moving about them; every mass of rock and thicket of thorn held possibilities for him, and his eyes were questing the higher ridges and the peaks as well as their immediate trail. It was because of this that he saw something which made him suddenly grip his companion's arm and pull him down beside him on the ground.
"Look!" he whispered, stretching out an arm.
From his kneeling posture Bruce stared. His eyes fairly popped in amazement. Not more than thirty feet above them was a big rock shaped like a dry-goods box, and protruding from behind the farther side of this rock was the rear half of a bear. It was a black bear, its glossy coat shining in the sunlight. For a full half minute Bruce continued to stare. Then he grinned.
"Asleep--dead asleep! Jimmy--you want to see some fun?"
He put down his gun and drew out his long hunting knife. He chuckled softly as he felt of its keen point.
"If you never saw a bear run yo'r goin' to see one run now, Jimmy! You stay here!"
He began crawling slowly and quietly up the slope toward the rock, while Langdon held his breath in anticipation of what was about to happen. Twice Bruce looked back, and he was grinning broadly. There was undoubtedly going to be a very much astonished bear racing for the tops of the Rocky Mountains in another moment or two, and between this thought and the picture of Bruce's long lank figure snaking its way upward foot by foot the humour of the situation fell upon Langdon. Finally Bruce reached the rock. The long knife-blade gleamed in the sun; then it shot forward and a half inch of steel buried itself in the bear's rump. What followed in the next thirty seconds Langdon would never forget. The bear made no movement. Bruce jabbed again. Still there was no movement, and at the second thrust Bruce remained as motionless as the rock against which he was crouching, and his mouth was wide open as he stared down at Langdon.
"Now what the devil do you think of that?" he said, and rose slowly to his feet. "He ain't asleep--he's dead!"
Langdon ran up to him, and they went around the end of the rock. Bruce still held the knife in his hand and there was an odd expression in his face--a look that put troubled furrows between his eyes as he stood for a moment without speaking.
"I never see anything like that before," he said, slowly slipping his knife in its sheath. "It's a she-bear, an' she had cubs--pretty young cubs, too, from the looks o' her.'
"She was after a whistler, and undermined the rock," added Langdon. "Crushed to death, eh, Bruce?"
Bruce nodded.
"I never see anything like it before," he repeated. "I've wondered why they didn't get killed by diggin' under the rocks--but I never see it. Wonder where the cubs are? Poor little devils!"
He was on his knees examining the dead mother's teats.
"She didn't have more'n two--mebby one," he said, rising. "About three months old."
"And they'll starve?"
"If there was only one he probably will. The little cuss had so much milk he didn't have to forage for himself. Cubs is a good deal like babies--you can wean 'em early or you can ha'f grow 'em on pap. An' this is what comes of runnin' off an' leavin' your babies alone," moralized Bruce. "If you ever git married, Jimmy, don't you let yo'r wife do it. Sometimes th' babies burn up or break their necks!"
Again he turned along the crest of the slope, his eyes once more searching the valley, and Langdon followed a step behind him, wondering what had become of the cub.
And Muskwa, still slumbering on the rock-ledge with Thor, was dreaming of the mother who lay crushed under the rock on the slope, and as he dreamed he whimpered softly.


CHAPTER EIGHT
The ledge where Thor and Muskwa lay caught the first gleams of the morning sun, and as the sun rose higher the ledge grew warmer and warmer, and Thor, when he awoke, merely stretched himself and made no effort to rise. After his wounds and the _sapoos oowin_ and the feast in the valley he was feeling tremendously fine and comfortable, and he was in no very great haste to leave this golden pool of sunlight. For a long time he looked steadily and curiously at Muskwa. In the chill of the night the little cub had snuggled up close between the warmth of Thor's huge forearms, and still lay there, whimpering in his babyish way as he dreamed.
After a time Thor did something that he had never been guilty of before--he sniffed gently at the soft little ball between his paws, and just once his big flat red tongue touched the cub's face; and Muskwa, perhaps still dreaming of his mother, snuggled closer. As little white children have won the hearts of savages who were about to slay them, so Muskwa had come strangely into the life of Thor.
The big grizzly was still puzzled. Not only was he struggling against an unaccountable dislike of all cubs in general, but also against the firmly established habits of ten years of aloneness. Yet he was beginning to comprehend that there was something very pleasant and companionable in the nearness of Muskwa. With the coming of man a new emotion had entered into his being--perhaps only the spark of an emotion. Until one has enemies, and faces dangers, one cannot fully appreciate friendship--and it may be that Thor, who now confronted real enemies and a real danger for the first time, was beginning to understand what friendship meant. Also it was drawing near to his mating season, and about Muskwa was the scent of his mother. And so as Muskwa continued to bask and dream in the sunshine, there was a growing content in Thor.
He looked down into the valley, shimmering in the wet of the night's rain, and he saw nothing to rouse discontent; he sniffed the air, and it was filled with the unpolluted sweetness of growing grass, of flowers, and balsam, and water fresh from the clouds.
Thor began to lick his wound, and it was this movement that roused Muskwa. The cub lifted his head. He blinked at the sun for a moment--then rubbed his face sleepily with his tiny paw and stood up. Like all youngsters, he was ready for another day, in spite of the hardships and toil of the preceding one.
While Thor still lay restfully looking down into the valley, Muskwa began investigating the crevices in the rock wall, and tumbled about among the boulders on the ledge.
From the valley Thor turned his eyes to the cub. There was curiosity in his attitude as he watched Muskwa's antics and queer tumblings among the rocks. Then he rose cumbrously and shook himself.
For at least five minutes he stood looking down into the valley, and sniffing the wind, as motionless as though carven out of rock. And Muskwa, perking up his little ears, came and stood beside him, his sharp little eyes peering from Thor off into sunlit space, and then back to Thor again, as if wondering what was about to happen next.
The big grizzly answered the question. He turned along the rock shelf and began descending into the valley. Muskwa tagged behind, just as he had followed the day before. The cub felt twice as big and fully twice as strong as yesterday, and he no longer was obsessed by that uncomfortable yearning for his mother's milk. Thor had graduated him quickly, and he was a meat-eater. And he knew they were returning to where they had feasted last night.
They had descended half the distance of the slope when the wind brought something to Thor. A deep-chested growl rolled out of him as he stopped for a moment, the thick ruff about his neck bristling ominously. The scent he had caught came from the direction of his cache, and it was an odour which he was not in a humour to tolerate in this particular locality. Strongly he smelled the presence of another bear. This would not have excited him under ordinary conditions, and it would not have excited him now had the presence been that of a female bear. But the scent was that of a he-bear, and it drifted strongly up a rock-cut ravine that ran straight down toward the balsam patch in which he had hidden the caribou.
Thor stopped to ask himself no questions. Growling under his breath, he began to descend so swiftly that Muskwa had great difficulty in keeping up with him. Not until they came to the edge of the plain that overlooked the lake and the balsams did they stop. Muskwa's little jaws hung open as he panted. Then his ears pricked forward, he stared, and suddenly every muscle in his small body became rigid.
Seventy-five yards below them their cache was being outraged. The robber was a huge black bear. He was a splendid outlaw. He was, perhaps, three hundred pounds lighter than Thor, but he stood almost as high, and in the sunlight his coat shone with the velvety gloss of sable--the biggest and boldest bear that had entered Thor's domain in many a day. He had