Tales of lonely trails by Zane Grey (free novel 24 .TXT) 📕

our minds made up what to do and where to get in case of being charged by a wounded grizzly. In this instance there was not a rock or a tree near at hand. "R.C. you'll have to stand your ground and kill him, that's all," I declared, grimly. "But it's quiet. You can hear a bear coming. If you do hear one—wait—and make sure your first shot lets him down."

"Don't worry. I could hear a squirrel coming over this ground," replied R.C.

Then I went on, not exactly at ease in mind, but stirred and thrilled to the keen charged atmosphere. I had to go around under the base of a rocky ledge, over rough ground. Presently I dropped into a bear trail, well trodden. I followed it to a corner of cliff where it went down. Then I kept on over loose rock and bare earth washed deep in ruts. I had to leap these. Perhaps in ten minutes I had traveled a quarter of a mile or less. Then spang! R.C.'s rifle-shot halted me. So clear and sharp, so close, so startling! I was thrilled, delighted—he had gotten a shot. I wanted to yell my pleasure. My blood warmed and my nerves tingled. Swiftly my thoughts ran—bad luck was nothing—a man had only to stick at a thing—what a fine, sharp, wonderful day for adventure! How the hounds bayed! Had R.C. sighted a bear somewhere below? Suddenly the still air split—spang! R.C.'s second shot gave me a shock. My breast contracted. I started back. "Suppose it was a grizzly—on that bad side!" I muttered. Spang!... I began to run. A great sweeping wave of emotion charged over me, swelling all my veins to the bursting point. Spang! My heart came to my throat. Leaping the ruts, bounding like a sheep from rock to rock, I covered my back tracks. All inside me seemed to flutter, yet I felt cold and hard—a sickening sense of reproach that I had left my brother in a bad position. Spang! His fifth and last shot followed swiftly after the fourth—too swift to be accurate. So hurriedly a man would act in close quarters. R.C. now had an empty rifle!... Like a flash I crossed that slope leading to the rocks, and tore around the cliff at such speed that it was a wonder I did not pitch down and break my neck. How long—how terribly long I seemed in reaching the corner of cliff! Then I plunged to a halt with eyes darting everywhere.

R.C. was not in sight. The steep curved neck of slope seemed all rocks, all trees, all brush. Then I heard a wild hoarse bawl and a loud crashing of brush. My gaze swerved to an open spot. A patch of manzanita seemed to blur round a big bear, standing up, fighting the branches, threshing and growling. But where was R.C.? Fearfully my gaze peered near and all around this wounded bear. "Hey there!" I yelled with all my might.

R.C.'s answer was another spang. I heard the bullet hit the bear. It must have gone clear through him for I saw bits of fur and manzanita fly. The bear plunged out of the bushes—out of my sight. How he crashed the brush—rolled the rocks! I listened. Down and down he crashed. Then the sound changed somewhat. He was rolling. At last that thumping sound ceased, and after it the roll of rocks.

"Are you—all right?" I shouted.

Then, after a moment that made me breathless, I heard R.C. laugh, a little shakily. "Sure am.... Did you see him?"

"Yes. I think he's your bear."

"I'm afraid he's got away. The hounds took another bear down the canyon. What'll we do?"

"Come on down," I said.

Fifty yards or more down the slope we met. I showed him a great splotch of blood on a flat stone. "We'll find him not far down," I said. So we slid and crawled, and held to brush and rocks, following that bloody trail until we came to a ledge. From there I espied the bear lodged against a manzanita bush. He lay on his back, all four paws extended, and he was motionless. R.C. and I sat down right there on the ledge.

"Looks pretty big—black and brown—mostly brown," I said. "I'm glad, old man, you stuck it out."

"Big!..." exclaimed R.C. with that same peculiar little laugh. "He doesn't look big now. But up there he looked like a hill.... What do you think? He came up that very way you told me to look out for. And if I hadn't had ears he'd got right on me. As it was, when I heard little rolling stones, and then saw him, he was almost on a level with me. My nerve was all right. I knew I had him. And I made sure of my first shot. I knocked him flat. But he got up—let out an awful snarl—and plunged my way. I can't say I know he charged me. Only it was just the same as if he had!... I knocked him down again and this time he began to kick and jump down the slope. That was my best shot. Think I missed him the next three. You see I had time to get shaky. If he had kept coming at me—good night!... I had trouble loading. But when I got ready again I ran down and saw him in that bush. Wasn't far from him then. When he let out that bawl he saw me. I don't know much about bears, but I know he wanted to get at me. And I'm sure of what he'd have done.... I didn't miss my last shot."

We sat there a while longer, slowly calming down. Wonderful indeed had been some of the moments of thrill, but there had been others not conducive to happiness. Why do men yearn for adventure in wild moments and regret the risks and spilled blood afterward?

IX

The hounds enjoyed a well-earned rest the next day. R.C. and I, behind Haught's back, fed them all they could eat. The old hunter had a fixed idea that dogs should be kept lean and hungry so they would run bears the better. Perhaps he was right. Only I could not withstand Old Dan and Old Tom as they limped to me, begging and whining. Yet not even sore feet and hunger could rob these grand old hounds of their dignity. For an hour that morning I sat beside them in a sunny spot.

In the afternoon Copple took me on a last deer hunt for that trip. We rode down the canyon a mile, and climbed out on the west slope. Haught had described this country as a "wolf" to travel. He used that word to designate anything particularly tough. We found the ridge covered with a dense forest, in places a matted jungle of pine saplings. These thickets were impenetrable. Heavy snows had bent the pines so that they grew at an angle. We found it necessary to skirt these thickets, and at that, sometimes had to cut our way through with our little axes. Hunting was scarcely possible under such conditions. Still we did not see any deer tracks.

Eventually we crossed this ridge, or at least the jungle part of it, and got lower down into hollows and swales full of aspens. Copple recognized country he had hunted before. We made our way up a long shallow hollow that ended in an open where lay the remains of an old log cabin, and corrals. From under a bluff bubbled a clear beautiful spring. Copple looked all around slowly, with strange expression, and at last, dismounting he knelt to drink of the spring.

"Ah-h-good!" he exclaimed, after a deep draught. "Get down an' drink. Snow water an' it never goes dry."

Indeed it was so cold it made my teeth ache, and so pure and sweet that I drank until I could hold no more. Deer and cat and bear tracks showed along the margin of clean sand. Lower down were fresh turkey tracks. A lonely spring in the woods visited by wild game! This place was singularly picturesque and beautiful. The purest drinking water is found in wild forest or on mountains. Men, cities, civilization contaminate waters that are not isolated.

Copple told me a man named Mitchell had lived in that lonely place thirty years ago. Copple, as a boy, had worked for him—had ridden wild bronchos and roped wild steers in that open, many and many a day. Something of unconscious pathos showed in Copple's eyes as he gazed around, and in his voice. We all hear the echoing footsteps of the past years! In those days Copple said the ranch was overrun by wild game, and wild horses too.

We rode on westward, to come out at length on the rim of a magnificent canyon. It was the widest and deepest and wildest gorge I had come across in this country. So deep that only a faint roar of running water reached our ears! The slopes were too steep for man, let alone a horse; and the huge cliffs and giant spruces gave it a singularly rugged appearance. We saw deer on the opposite slope. Copple led along the edge, searching for traces of an old trail where Mitchell used to drive cattle across. We did not find a trail, but we found a place where Copple said one used to be. I could see no signs of it. Here leading his horse with one hand and wielding his little axe with the other Copple started down. For my part I found going down remarkably easy. The only trouble I had was to hold on, so I would not go down like a flash. Stockings, my horse, had in a few weeks become a splendid traveler in the forest. He had learned to restrain his spirit and use his intelligence. Wherever I led he would go and that without any fear. There is something fine in constant association with an intelligent horse under such circumstances. In bad places Stockings braced his forefeet, sat on his haunches, and slid, sometimes making me jump to get out of his way. We found the canyon bed a narrow notch, darkly rich and green, full of the melody of wild birds and murmuring brook, with huge rocks all stained gold and russet, and grass as high as our knees. Frost still lingered in the dark, cool, shady retreat; and where the sun struck a narrow strip of the gorge there was warm, sweet, dry breath of the forest. But for the most part, down here all was damp, dank, cool shadow where sunshine never reached, and where the smells were of dead leaves and wet moss and ferns and black rich earth.

Impossible we found it to