CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
BESIEGED BY GRIZZLY BEARS.
The young hunters now laid aside their guns, drew their knives, andskinned the cimmarons with the dexterity of practised "killers." Theythen cut up the meat, so as the more conveniently to transport it totheir camp. The skins they did not care for; so these were suffered toremain on the ground where they had been thrown.
As soon as the "mutton" was quartered, each shouldered a piece, andcommenced carrying it toward the ravine, intending to return and bringthe rest at another load or two. On reaching the point where the pathcame up on the table, they saw that it would be difficult for them todescend with their burdens--as it is more easy to climb a precipice thanto get down one. Another plan suggested itself; and that was, to pitchthe pieces down before them to the bottom of the ravine. This theycould accomplish without difficulty. It would do the meat no harm--asthey intended to cut it up for jerking--and they could easily wash outthe dirt and gravel at the spring, when they had got it all there.
This plan was at once adopted; and, taking up piece by piece they flungthem down the chasm, and could see them lying among the rocks at thebottom. They then went back to the carcasses, took up fresh loads, andreturned with them to the ravine.
As they stepped forward to fling them over, a sight met their eyes thatcaused each one to drop his load upon the spot. Down near the bottom ofthe ravine, and moving among the pieces of meat, was a hideous object--ahuge and ill-shaped animal. Its great size--its long shaggy hair andgreyish brown colour--but, above all, its fierce aspect, left no doubtupon the minds of our hunters as to what sort of animal it was. Therewas no mistaking the dreaded monster of the mountains--the _grizzlybear_!
It was nearly twice the size of the common bear; and it differed fromthe latter in other respects. Its ears were more erect; its eyes, ofburnt sienna colour, looked more fiery and glaring; its head and muzzlewere broader--giving it an appearance of greater boldness and strength--and its long crescent-shaped claws, protruding from the shaggy coveringof its feet, could be distinctly seen from the top of the cliff. Withthese it had just torn one of the pieces of mutton into smallerfragments, and was eagerly devouring it as the boys arrived on theheight above. It was so busily engaged that it did not notice them.
All three, as we have said, dropped their loads on the ground; and,after pausing for a moment to look down, ran precipitately back fortheir guns. These they got hold of, and examined with care, looking totheir caps and nipples. They had already loaded them, before commencingto skin the cimmarons. They now stole cautiously back to the ravine,and again looked over its edge. To their consternation, _not one bear,but three of these horrid animals_ were busy with the meat below! Onewas smaller than either of the others, and differed from them in colour.It was quite black; and might have passed for a full-grown bear of theblack species. It was not that, however; but a large cub, of which theother two were the parents.
All three were tearing away at the fresh meat, evidently in high glee,and not caring to consider whence such a windfall had come, so long asthey were getting the benefit of it. They occasionally uttered loudsnorts--as if to express their gratification--and at intervals the oldmale one growled as the cub interfered with his eating. The female, onthe contrary, as she tore the mutton into fragments, kept placing thedaintiest morsels before the snout of her black progeny; and withplayful strokes of her paw admonished it from time to time to fall toand eat. Sometimes they ate standing erect, and holding the meatbetween their fore-paws. At others they would place the piece upon arock, and devour it at their leisure. Their jaws and claws were redwith the blood--that still remained in the hastily-butchered meat--andthis added to the ferocious aspect of the trio.
Our adventurers gazed down upon the scene with feelings of the utmostterror; and no wonder. They had heard such stories of the grizzly bear,as would have inspired stouter hearts than theirs with feelings of thekind. They knew that no hunter, when dismounted, ever dares to attackthis animal; and, even when on horseback and armed with his trustyrifle, he will only venture to do so when the ground is open, and he issure of escape through the fleetness of his horse. They knew thathunters, even when in large parties, are often chased by a single bearof this kind, after each of them had given him a shot; for as many astwenty bullets have been fired into the body of a grizzly bear withoutbringing him to the ground. All these facts came into the minds of ourboy hunters at the moment. No wonder they felt fear.
They were in a most perilous situation. The bears occupied the ravine.There was no other path by which they could get down to their horses.They had gone almost quite round the butte in their morning search.They had seen that it was precipitous on all sides, and they had sinceobserved that the space between the ravine and their point of startingwas the same. How, then, were they to get back to camp? There was noway but one--_down_ the ravine--and the bears would be certain to attackthem should they attempt to descend that way.
The boys gazed at each other with terrified looks, repeating what theyhad to say in muttered whispers. All three well understood the dangerof their position. Would the bears, after they had satisfied theirhunger, go off and leave the ravine? No. The cave, which had beennoticed, was their lair, beyond a doubt. Even if they should enter it,what certainty was there that they would not rush out upon the boys asthey were clambering down? If so, they would easily overcome the latteramong the loose rocks and bushes. One or all would fall a sacrificeshould they attempt to descend. Might the bears not go out upon theplain? Perhaps they might go out as far as the spring, either forwater, or led by some other want. But even so, they would then be ableto see the hunters coming down, and could easily overtake them beforethe latter could reach the camp, or their horses. The horses had beenset loose, and were now a good distance off upon the prairie. There wasbut little consolation in this thought, and less in that which occurredto them next; which was that the fierce brutes might not be satisfied atwhat they had eaten, but might take it into their heads to clamber up tothe summit in search of more! This apprehension was the most fearful ofall--as the boys knew that there was no place upon the table where theycould long conceal themselves; and to get down, if once discovered andpursued, would be utterly impossible.
Filled with these appalling thoughts, they crouched upon their hands andknees, now peering cautiously through the leaves of the aloes, and nowwhispering to each other the various plans of escape that suggestedthemselves. But all these plans ended in the faint hope that the bearsmight make a temporary absence from the ravine, and give them a chanceto pass down. They could think of no other mode of extricatingthemselves from their dilemma.
At times the idea occurred to Basil, of taking good aim, and firing atone or other of the huge animals. Francois applauded this idea, whileLucien as strongly opposed it. The latter argued that it would onlyirritate the bears, and bring them up at once--that there was no chanceof killing any of them by a single bullet, unless it passed through thebrain or the heart; and this, aiming, as they must do, over a cliff, wasa very problematical affair. Even should one fall, the others wouldavenge the death of their comrade. A volley would not be likely to killthem all.
Lucien's arguments prevailed; and the less prudent brothers gave uptheir idea of firing, and remained, silently gazing down as before.
They lay for nearly half-an-hour watching and waiting. The bearsfinished their meal, having devoured every bit of the meat. Were theysatisfied? No. A shoulder of mutton is but a morsel to the ravenousappetite of a grizzly bear; and it seemed only to have set theirs uponedge. They guessed whence their lunch had come--from above--and therewas the place to go in search of their dinner. They looked up. Theboys suddenly drew back their heads, hiding them behind the leaves. Itwas too late. The bears had seen them, and the next moment weregalloping upward!
The first thought of our hunters was to fly, and with this intentionthey all sprang to their feet. But Basil, with a feeling of rage, wasdete
rmined to try whether a rifle-bullet might not serve as a check tothe advancing enemy. He levelled down the pass, and fired. Hisbrothers, seeing him do so, followed his example--Francois emptying bothbarrels that had been loaded with buck-shot. One of the bears--the cubit was--tumbled back down the ravine but after the volley the largest ofall was seen clambering up, growling fiercely as he came. The hunters,not having time to reload, ran off over the table--scarcely knowing whatdirection to take.
When they had got half-way across it, all three stopped and looked back.The foremost bear was just rising above the cliff; and the next momenthis long body was stretched out in pursuit of them. They had been inhopes that the pieces of meat might have attracted his attention, anddrawn him aside. This did not happen. The meat was not directly uponhis path; moreover, the animal appeared infuriated as he approached. Hehad been stung by the shot, and was bent upon revenge.
It was a terrible moment. The angry monster was within three hundredyards of them. In a few seconds he would be upon them, and one or theother must become his victim.
In crises like these, bold minds are the most apt to conceiveexpedients. So it was with that of Basil. On other occasions he wasrash and often imprudent, but in moments of extreme danger he becamecool and collected, even more so than his philosophic brother, Lucien.A thought, which hitherto had strangely been overlooked both by himselfand his brothers, now in the hour of peril came into his mind. Heremembered that the grizzly bear is _not a tree-climber_! With thethought he shouted out,--
"To the trees! to the trees!" at the same time embracing one of thepines, and sprawling upwards as fast as he could climb.
Both Lucien and Francois imitated his example, each taking to the treethat grew nearest him--for the bear was not twenty paces behind them,and there was no time to pick and choose. Before the latter could comeup, however, all three were perched in the pines, as high among thebranches as they could safely get.
The bear galloped forward, and seeing where they had gone, ran from treeto tree, growling with rage and disappointment. He rose upon hishind-legs, and endeavoured to reach the lowermost branches with hisfore-paws--as if he intended to draw himself up, or drag the tree down.One by one he assailed the pines, shaking them with violence, and withhis claws making the bark fly off in large pieces. One in particular--that upon which Francois had taken refuge--being a small tree, vibratedso rapidly under the powerful efforts of the brute, that its occupantwas in danger of being dashed to the ground. But the fear of such anevent caused Francois to put forth all his energies; and, encouraged bythe shouts of Basil and Lucien, he held on manfully. The bear, after awhile, seeing he could not shake him off, gave it up; and again triedhis strength upon the trees that had been climbed by the others. Thisended as before; except that the bear completely skinned off the bark ashigh as he could reach, and made such an impression upon the trunks withhis teeth and claws, that the boys feared he might take it into his headto cut down the trees altogether. He could easily have accomplishedthis; but, fortunately for them, the grizzly bear is not gifted withreasoning faculties, else their fate would have been a terrible oneindeed.
When he found, at length, that he could neither drag down the trees, norshake the boys out of them, he gave up the attempt; and for a timewalked from one to the other, backwards and forwards, like a sentry, nowand then uttering a loud "sniff," and at intervals growling fiercely.At length he stretched his huge body along the ground, and appeared tosleep!
What had become of the female and the cub? Had both fallen by the shotsfired at them? Neither had as yet made their appearance on the summit--for the boys from their perch could see every inch of its surface. Theywere still in the ravine then; but whether dead or alive could not bedetermined. The dog Marengo, by a wise instinct, had not attacked thebear, but had escaped to one edge of the table, where he was crouchingand cowering with fear, taking care not to put himself in the way ofbeing seen.
The young hunters were now in a worse situation than ever. They darednot venture out of the trees without the certainty of dropping into thejaws of the monster; and they were suffering pain as they sat straddledacross the slender branches of the pines. Besides, they were thirsty--thirsty to an extreme degree. They had taken no water with them in themorning. The sun was fiercely hot; and, even while engaged in skinningthe big-horns, they had been complaining for want of water. They nowbegan to suffer from thirst, more than from any other cause. Should thebear remain for any length of time, what would become of them? Theymust either drop down to be at once torn to pieces, or perish slowlywhere they sat. These were the alternatives!
They could make no change in their situation. Their guns were upon theground, where in their haste they had flung them. They dared notdescend to recover them. They were utterly helpless; and could donothing but await the result. As if to tantalise them, they now beheldfor the first time the objects of their far expedition--the animals theyhad so long desired to come up with--_the buffaloes_! Away to thesouth-west a multitude of black bodies were seen upon the plain, likecrowds of men in dark clothing. They were moving to and fro, nowuniting in masses, and now separating like the squadrons of an irregulararmy. Miles of the green prairie were mottled by their huge dark forms,or hidden altogether from the view. They seemed to be moving northward,along the level meadows that stretched between the butte and the LlanoEstacado. This proved to be the case; for in a few minutes the headmosthad pushed forward on a line with the butte; and our young hunters coulddistinguish the shaggy, lion-shaped bodies of the bulls that formed thevanguard of the "gang." Under other circumstances this would have beena glad sight indeed. As it was, it only served to render theirsituation more intolerable. The buffaloes were passing to the north.Even should they themselves escape, after a time they might not be ableto overtake them; and although they could distinguish none that were_white_--for the main body was a great way off--it was highly probablethat in so large a herd one or more of these would be found.
As all three continued to watch the black multitudes rolling past, anexclamation, or rather a _shout_ of joy, was uttered by Basil. He wasupon a tree that stood apart from the others and gave him anunobstructed view of the plains to the west.
"_Voila_! yonder! yonder!" he cried: "see! in the middle of the drove!See, brothers!--it shines in the sun--white--white! Huzza!--huzza!"
Basil's speech was scarcely coherent. Neither was that of his brothers,when they beheld the object to which he had alluded. It could benothing else, all believed, than the object of their long wild hunt--a_white buffalo_. All three huzzaed loudly, and for a moment forgot theperil of their position. Their shouts started the grizzly monsterbelow, who, lazily rising to his feet, once more commenced growling andshuffling about among the trees. The sight of him soon restored thehunters to a sense of the fearful realities that surrounded them.