XI. THE OLD HUNTER
I ran till I got a stitch in my side, and then slowed down to adog-trot. The one thing to do was to get a long way ahead of mypursuers, for surely at the outset they would stick like hounds to mytrail.
A mile or more below the gorge I took to the stream and waded. Itwas slippery, dangerous work, for the current tore about my legs andthreatened to upset me. After a little I crossed to the left bank. Herethe slope of the canyon was thick with grass that hid my tracks. It wasa long climb up to the level. Upon reaching it I dropped, exhausted.
"I've--given them--the slip," I panted, exultantly.... "But--now what?"
It struck me that now I was free, I had only jumped out of thefrying-pan into the fire. Hurriedly I examined my Winchester. Themagazine contained ten cartridges. What luck that Stockton had neglectedto unload it! This made things look better. I had salt and pepper, aknife, and matches--thanks to the little leather case--and so I couldlive in the woods.
It was too late for regrets. I might have freed Dick somehow or evenheld the men at bay, but I had thought only of escape. The lack of nerveand judgment stung me. Then I was bitter over losing my mustang andoutfit.
But on thinking it all over, I concluded that I ought to be thankful forthings as they were. I was free, with a whole skin. That climb out ofthe gorge had been no small risk. How those bullets had whistled andhissed!
"I'm pretty lucky," I muttered. "Now to get good and clear of thisvicinity. They'll ride down the trail after me. Better go over thisridge into the next canyon and strike down that. I must go down. But howfar? What must I strike for?"
I took a long look at the canyon. In places the stream showed, also thetrail; then there were open patches, but I saw no horses or men. Witha grim certainty that I should be lost in a very little while, I turnedinto the cool, dark forest.
Every stone and log, every bit of hard ground in my path, served to helphide my trail. Herky-Jerky very likely had the cowboy's skill at findingtracks, but I left few traces of my presence on that long slope. Only anIndian or a hound could have trailed me. The timber was small and roughbrush grew everywhere. Presently I saw light ahead, and I came to anopen space. It was a wide swath in the forest. At once I recognized thepath of an avalanche. It sloped up clean and bare to the gray cliffs farabove. Below was a great mass of trees and rocks, all tangled in blacksplintered ruin. I pushed on across the path, into the forest, and upand down the hollows. The sun had gone down behind the mountain, and theshadows were gathering when I came to another large canyon. It looked somuch like the first that I feared I had been travelling in a circle. Butthis one seemed wider, deeper, and there was no roar of rushing water.
It was time to think of making camp, and so I hurried down the slope.At the bottom I found a small brook winding among boulders and ledgesof rock. The far side of this canyon was steep and craggy. Soon Idiscovered a place where I thought it would be safe to build a fire. Myclothes were wet, and the air had grown keen and cold. Gathering a storeof wood, I made my fire in a niche. For a bed I cut some sweet-scentedpine boughs (I thought they must be from a balsam-tree), and these Ilaid close up in a rocky corner. Thus I had the fire between me andthe opening, and with plenty of wood to burn I did not fear visits frombears or lions. At last I lay down, dry and warm indeed, but very tiredand hungry.
Darkness closed in upon me. I saw a few stars, heard the cheery crackleof my fire, and then I fell asleep. Twice in the night I awakened cold,but by putting on more firewood I was soon comfortable again.
When I awoke the sun was shining brightly into my rocky bedchamber. Thefire had died out completely, there was frost on the stones. To build upanother fire and to bathe my face in the ice-water of the brook were myfirst tasks. The air was sweet; it seemed to freeze as I breathed, andwas a bracing tonic. I was tingling all over, and as hungry as a starvedwolf.
I set forth on a hunt for game. Even if the sound of a shot betrayedmy whereabouts I should have to abide by it, for I had to eat. Steppingsoftly along, I glanced about me with sharp eyes. Deer trails werethick. The bottom of this canyon was very wide, and grew wider as Iproceeded. Then the pines once more became large and thrifty. I judged Ihad come down the mountain, perhaps a couple of thousand feet belowthe camp in the gorge. I flushed many of the big blue grouse, and I sawnumerous coyotes, a fox, and a large brown beast which moved swiftlyinto a thicket. It was enough to make my heart rise in my throat. Todream of hunting bears was something vastly different from meeting onein a lonely canyon.
Just after this I saw a herd of deer. They were a good way off. I beganto slip from tree to tree, and drew closer. Presently I came to a littlehollow with a thick, short patch of underbrush growing on the oppositeside. Something crashed in the thicket. Then two beautiful deer ran out.One bounded leisurely up the slope; the other, with long ears erect,stopped to look at me. It was no more than fifty yards away. Tremblingwith eagerness, I leveled my rifle. I could not get the sight to staysteady on the deer. Even then, with the rifle wobbling in my intenseexcitement, I thought of how beautiful that wild creature was. Strainingevery nerve, I drew the sight till it was in line with the gray shape,then fired. The deer leaped down the slope, staggered, and crumpled downin a heap.
I tore through the bushes, and had almost reached the bottom of thehollow when I remembered that a wounded deer was dangerous. So I halted.The gray form was as still as stone. I ventured closer. The deer wasdead. My bullet had entered high above the shoulder at the juncture ofthe neck. Though I had only aimed at him generally, I took a good dealof pride in my first shot at a deer.
Fortunately my pen-knife had a fair-sized blade. With it I decided tocut out part of the deer and carry it back to my camp. Then it occurredto me that I might as well camp where I was. There were several jumblesof rock and a cliff within a stone's-throw of where I stood. Besides, Imust get used to making camp wherever I happened to be. Accordingly, Itook hold of the deer, and dragged him down the hollow till I came to aleaning slab of rock.
Skinning a deer was, of course, new to me. I haggled the flesh somewhatand cut through the skin often, my knife-blade being much too small forsuch work. Finally I thought it would be enough for me to cut out thehaunches, and then I got down to one haunch. It had bothered me how Iwas going to sever the joint, but to my great surprise I found theredid not seem to be any connection between the bones. The haunch came outeasily, and I hung it up on a branch while making a fire.
Herky-Jerky's method of broiling a piece of venison at the end of astick solved the problem of cooking. Then it was that the little flatflask, full of mixed salt and pepper, rewarded me for the long carryingof it. I was hungry, and I feasted.
By this time the sun shone warm, and the canyon was delightful. I roamedaround, sat on sunny stones, and lay in the shade of pines. Deer browsedin the glades. When they winded or saw me they would stand erect, shootup their long cars, and then leisurely lope away. Coyotes trotted outof thickets and watched me suspiciously. I could have shot several,but deemed it wise to be saving of my ammunition. Once I heard a lowdrumming. I could not imagine what made it. Then a big blue grousestrutted out of a patch of bushes. He spread his wings and tail and neckfeathers, after the fashion of a turkey-gobbler. It was a flap or shakeof his wings that produced the drumming. I wondered if he intended, byhis actions, to frighten me away from his mate's nest. So I went towardhim, and got very close before he flew. I caught sight of his mate inthe bushes, and, as I had supposed, she was on a nest. Though wanting tosee her eggs or young ones, I resisted the temptation, for I was afraidif I went nearer she might abandon her nest, as some mother birds do.
It did not seem to me that I was lost, yet lost I was. The peaks werenot in sight. The canyon widened down the slope, and I was pretty surethat it opened out flat into the great pine forest of Penetier. The onlything that bothered me was the loss of my mustang and outfit; I couldnot reconcile myself to that. So I wandered about with a strange, fullsense of freedom such as I had never before known. What was to
be theend of my adventure I could not guess, and I wasted no time worryingover it.
The knowledge I had of forestry I tried to apply. I studied the northand south slopes of the canyon, observing how the trees prospered on thesunny side. Certain saplings of a species unknown to me had been gnawedfully ten feet from the ground. This puzzled me. Squirrels could nothave done it, nor rabbits, nor birds. Presently I hit upon the solution.The bark and boughs of this particular sapling were food for deer, andto gnaw so high the deer must have stood upon six or seven feet of snow.
I dug into the soft duff under the pines. This covering of the rootswas very thick and deep. I made it out to be composed of pine-needles,leaves, and earth. It was like a sponge. No wonder such covering heldthe water! I pried bark off dead trees and dug into decayed logs to findthe insect enemies of the trees. The open places, where little coloniesof pine sprouts grew, seemed generally to be down-slope from the parenttrees. It was easy to tell the places where the wind had blown theseeds.
The hours sped by. The shadows of the pines lengthened, the sun set,and the shade deepened in the hollows. Returning to my camp, I cookedmy supper and made my bed. When I had laid up a store of firewood it wasnearly dark.
With night came the coyotes. The carcass of the deer attracted them, andthey approached from all directions. At first it was fascinating to hearone howl far off in the forest, and then to notice the difference in thesound as he came nearer and nearer. The way they barked and snapped outthere in the darkness was as wild a thing to hear as any boy could havewished for. It began to be a little too much for me. I kept up a brightfire, and, though not exactly afraid, I had a perch picked out in thenearest tree. Suddenly the coyotes became silent. Then a low, continuousgrowling, a snapping of twigs, and the unmistakable drag of a heavybody over the ground made my hair stand on end. Gripping my rifle, Ilistened. I heard the crunch of teeth on bones, then more sounds ofsomething being dragged down the hollow. The coyotes began to barkagain, but now far back in the forest.
Some beast had frightened them. What was it? I did not know whether abear would eat deer flesh, but I thought not. Perhaps timber-wolveshad disturbed the coyotes. But would they run from wolves? It came to mesuddenly--a mountain-lion!
I hugged my fire, and sat there, listening with all my ears, imaginingevery rustle of leaf to be the step of a lion. It was long before thethrills and shivers stopped chasing over me, longer before I coulddecide to lie down. But after a while the dead quiet of the forestpersuaded me that the night was far advanced, and I fell asleep.
The first thing in the morning I took my rifle and went out to where Ihad left the carcass of the deer. It was gone. It had been dragged away.A dark path on the pine-needles and grass, and small bushes pressed tothe ground, plainly marked the trail. But search as I might, I couldnot find the track of the animal that had dragged off the deer. Afterfollowing the trail for a few rods, I decided to return to camp and cookbreakfast before going any farther. While I was at it I cut many thinslices of venison, and, after roasting them, I stored them away in thecapacious pocket of my coat.
My breakfast finished, I again set out to see what had become of theremains of the deer. In two or three places the sharp hoofs had cutlines in the soft earth, and there were tufts of whitish-gray hairelsewhere. A hundred yards or more down the hollow I came to a bare spotwhere recently there had been a pool of water. Here I found cat tracksas large as my two hands. I had never seen the track of a mountain-lion,but, all the same, I knew that this was the real thing. What an enormousbrute he must have been! I cast fearful glances into the surroundingthickets.
It was not needful to travel much farther. Under a bush well hidden in aclump of trees lay what now remained of my deer. A patch of gray hair, afew long bones, a split skull, and two long ears--no more! Even the hidewas gone. Perhaps the coyotes had finished the job after the lion hadgorged himself, but I did not think so. It seemed to me that coyoteswould have scattered the remains. Those two long ears somehow seemedpathetic. I wished for a second that the lion were in range of my rifle.
The lion was driven from my mind when I saw a troop of deer cross aglade below me. I had to fight myself to keep from shooting. The windblew rather strong in my face, which probably accounted for the deer notwinding me.
Then the whip-like crack of a rifle riveted me where I stood. One of thedeer fell, and the others bounded away. I saw a tall man stride downthe slope and into the glade. He was not like any of the loggers orlumbermen. They were mostly brawny and round-shouldered. This man waslithe, erect; he walked like athletes I had seen. Surely I should find afriend in him, and I lost no time in running down into the glade. He sawme as soon as I was clear of the trees, and stood leaning on his rifle.
"Wal, dog-gone my buttons!" he ejaculated. "Who're you?"
I blurted out all about myself, at the same time taking stock of him.He was not young, but I had never seen a young man so splendid. Hair,beard, and skin were all of a dark gray. His eyes, too, were gray--thekeenest and clearest I had ever looked into. They shone with a kindlylight, otherwise I might have thought his face hard and stern. Hisshoulders were very wide, his arms long, his hands enormous. Hisbuckskin shirt attracted my attention to his other clothes, which lookedlike leather overalls or heavy canvas. A belt carried a huge knife and anumber of shells of large caliber; the Winchester he had was exceedinglylong and heavy, and of an old pattern. The look of him brought back myold fancy of Wetzel or Kit Carson.
"So I'm lost," I concluded, "and don't know what to do. I daren't try tofind the sawmill. I won't go back to Holston just yet."
"An' why not, youngster? 'Pears to me you'd better make tracks fromPenetier."
I told him why, at which he laughed.
"Wal, I reckon you can stay with me fer a spell. My camp's in the headof this canyon."
"Oh, thank you, that'll be fine!" I exclaimed. My great good luck filledme with joy. "Do you stay on the mountain?"
"Be'n here goin' on eighteen years, youngster. Mebbe you've heerd myname. Hiram Bent."
"Are you a hunter?"
"Wal, I reckon so, though I'm more a trapper. Here, you pack my gun."
With that he drew his knife and set to work on the deer. It waswonderful to see his skill. In a few cuts and strokes, a ripping of thehide and a powerful slash, he had cut out a haunch. It took even lesswork for the second. Then he hung the rest of the deer on a snag, andwiped his knife and hands on the grass.
"Come on, youngster," he said, starting up the canyon.
I showed him where the carcass of my deer had been devoured.
"Cougar. Thar's a big feller has the run of this canyon."
"Cougar? I thought it was a mountain-lion."
"Cougar, painter, panther, lion--all the same critter. An' if you leavehim alone he'll not bother you, but he's bad in a corner."
"He scared away the coyotes."
"Youngster, even a silver-tip--thet's a grizzly bear--will make tracksaway from a cougar. I lent my pack of hounds to a pard over nearSpringer. If I had them we'd put thet cougar up a tree in no time."
"Are there many lions--cougars here?"
"Only a few. Thet's why there's plenty of deer. Other game is plentiful,too. Foxes, wolves, an', up in the mountains, bears are thick."
"Then I may get to see one--get a shot at one?"
"Wal, I reckon."
From that time I trod on air. I found myself wishing for my brother Hal.I became reconciled to the loss of mustang and outfit. For a momentI almost forgot Dick and Buell. Forestry seemed less important thanhunting. I had read a thousand books about old hunters and trappers,and here I was in a wild mountain canyon with a hunter who might havestepped out of one of my dreams. So I trudged along beside him, askinga question now and then, and listening always. He certainly knew whatwould interest me. There was scarcely a thing he said that I would everforget. After a while, however, the trail became so steep and rough thatI, at least, had no breath to spare for talking. We climbed and climbed.The canyon had b
ecome a narrow, rocky cleft. Huge stones blocked theway. A ragged growth of underbrush fringed the stream. Dead pines, withbranches like spears, lay along the trail.
We came upon a little clearing, where there was a rude log-cabin witha stone chimney. Skins of animals were tacked upon logs. Under the bankwas a spring. The mountain overshadowed this wild nook.
"Wal, youngster, here's my shack. Make yourself to home," said HiramBent.
I was all eyes as we entered the cabin. Skins, large and small, and ofmany colors, hung upon the walls. A fire burned in a wide stone grate. Arough table and some pans and cooking utensils showed evidence of recentscouring. A bunch of steel traps lay in a corner. Upon a shelf weretin cans and cloth bags, and against the wall stood a bed of glossybearskins. To me the cabin was altogether a most satisfactory place.
"I reckon ye're tired?" asked the hunter. "Thet's some pumpkins of aclimb unless you're used to it."
I admitted I was pretty tired.
"Wal, rest awhile. You look like you hadn't slept much."
He asked me about my people and home, and was so interested in forestrythat he left off his task of the moment to talk about it. I was not longin discovering that what he did not know about trees and forests washardly worth learning. He called it plain woodcraft. He had never heardof forestry. All the same I hungered for his knowledge. How lucky for meto fall in with him! The things that had puzzled me about the pines heanswered easily. Then he volunteered information. From talking of theforest, he drifted to the lumbermen.
"Wal, the lumber-sharks are rippin' holes in Penetier. I reckon theywouldn't stop at nothin'. I've heered some tough stories about thetsawmill gang. I ain't acquainted with Leslie, or any of them fellers younamed except Jim Williams. I knowed Jim. He was in Springer fer a while.If Jim's your friend, there'll be somethin' happenin, when he rounds upthem kidnappers. I reckon you'd better hang up with me fer a while. Youdon't want to get ketched again. Your life wasn't much to them fellers.I think they'd held on to you fer money. It's too bad you didn't sendword home to your people."
"I sent word home about the big steal of timber. That was before I gotkidnapped. By this time the Government knows."
"Wal, you don't say! Thet was pert of you, youngster. An' will theGovernment round up these sharks?"
"Indeed it will. The Government is in dead earnest about protecting theNational Forests."
"So it ought to be. Next to a forest fire, I hate these skinned timbertracts. Wal, old Penetier's going to see somethin' lively before long.Youngster, them lumbermen--leastways, them fellers you call Bud an'Bill, an' such--they're goin' to fight."
The old hunter left me presently, and went outside. I waited awhile forhim, but as he did not return I lay down upon the bearskins and droppedto sleep. It seemed I had hardly closed my eyes when I felt a hand on myarm and heard a voice.
"Wake up, youngster. Thar's two old bears an' a cub been foolin' withone of my traps."
In a flash I was wide awake.
"Let's see your gun. Humph! pretty small--38 caliber, ain't it? Wal,it'll do the work if you hold straight. Can you shoot?"
"Fairly well."
He took his heavy Winchester, and threw a coil of thin rope over hisshoulder.
"Come on. Stay close to me, an' keep your eyes peeled."