The Snowshoe Trail

  XVIII

  Several seasons before there had been a fatality on the hillside aboveCreek Despair. An ancient spruce tree, one that had watched the forestdrama for uncounted years, whose tall head lifted above all thesurrounding forest and who had known the silence and the snow of ahundred winters, had languished, withered and died from sheer old age.For some seasons it had stood in its place, silent and grim and majesticin death. On the day that the three hunters emerged on their snowshoesin search of meat for their depleted larder, the wind pressed gentlyagainst it. Because its trunk was rotted away it swayed and fellheavily.

  There was nothing particularly memorable in this. All trees die; all ofthem fall at last. Its particular significance lay in the fact that asit shattered down, sliding a distance on the steep hillside, it scrapedthe snow from the mouth of a winter lair of a scarcely less venerableforest inhabitant,--a savage, long-clawed, gray-furred grizzly bear.

  The creature had gone into hibernation weeks before: he was deep in thecold-trance--that mysterious coma of which the wisest naturalists haveno real knowledge--when the tree fell. He hadn't in the least countedon being disturbed until the leaves budded out in spring. He had filledhis belly well, crawled into a long, narrow cavern in the rock, the snowhad sifted down and sealed him in, his bodily heat had warmed to asufficient degree the little alcove in the cavern that he occupied, hisblood temperature had dropped down and his breathing had almost ceased,and he had lain in a deep, strange stupor, oblivious to the passage oftime. And he felt the rage known to all sleepy men on being awakened.

  The grizzly is a particularly crafty, intelligent animal--on theintellectual plane of the dog and elephant--and he had chosen hiswinter lair with special purpose in mind of a long and uninterruptedsleep. The cavern mouth was so well concealed that even the sharp eyesof the wild creatures, passing up and down the creek hardly a hundredfeet away, never guessed its existence. The cavern maw had been largeonce, for all to see, but an avalanche had passed over it. Tons ofsnow, picking up a great cargo of rocks and dirt that no stream dredgein the world could lift, had roared and bellowed down the slope,narrowly missing the trunk of the great spruce, changing the contour ofthe creek bed and concealing its landmarks, and only a square yard ofthe original entrance was left. This opening was concealed by a littlecluster of young spruce that had sprung up in the fallen earth. Yes,old Ephraim had had every reason to believe that no one would find himor break his sleep, and he was all the more angry at the interruption.

  The falling tree had made a frightful crash just over his head, and eventhe deep coma in which the grizzly lay was abruptly dissolved. Hesprang up, ready to fight. A little gleam of sunlight ventured throughthe spruce thicket, down into the mouth of the cavern, and lay like apatch of gold on the cavern floor. It served to waken some slightdegree of interest in the snowy world without. It might be well to lookaround a moment, at least, before he lay down to sleep again. At leasthe had to scrape more snow over the cabin mouth. And in the meantime hemight be lucky enough to find the dearest delight in his life,--agood, smashing, well-matched fight to cool the growing anger in hisgreat veins.

  Ephraim was an old bear, used to every hunting wile, and his dispositionhadn't improved with years. He was the undisputed master of the forest,and he couldn't think of any particular enemy that he would notencounter with a roar of joy. As often, in the case of the old, histeeth were rotting away; and the pain was a darting, stabbing devil inhis gums. His little, fierce eyes burned and smoldered with wrath, hegrunted deep in his throat, and he pushed out savagely through thecavern maw. It was only a step farther through the spruce thicket intothe sunlight. And at the first glance he knew that his wish was comingtrue.

  Three figures, two abreast and one behind, came mushing through thelittle pass where the creek flowed. He knew them well enough. Therewere plenty of grizzly traditions concerned with them. He recognizedthem in an instant as his hereditary foes,--the one breed that had notyet learned to give him right-of-way on the trail. They were tall,fearful forms, and something in their eyes sent a shudder of cold clearto his heart, yet he was not in the humor to give ground. His nerveswere jumpy and unstrung from the fall of the tree, his jaw wracked him;a turn of the hair might decide whether he would merely stand and letthem pass, or whether he would launch into that terrible, death-dealingcharge that most grizzly hunters, sooner or later, come to know. Hismental processes did not go far enough to disassociate these enemieswith the stabbing foe in his gums. For the same reason he blamed themfor disruption of his sleep. His ears laid back, and he uttered a deepgrowl.

  There was no more magnificent creature in all of the breadth of theforest than this, the grizzly of the Selkirks. He was old and savageand wise; but for all his years, in the highest pinnacle of hisstrength. No man need to glance twice at him to know his glory. Notenderfoot could look at him and again wonder why, in the talk round thecamp fire, the tried woodsmen always spoke of the grizzly with respect.

  It was true that in the far corners of the earth there were creaturesthat could master him. The elephant could crush the life from hismighty body with the power of his knees; Kobaoba the rhino, most surlyof all game, could have pierced his heart with his horn; perhapseven the Cape buffalo--that savage explosive old gentleman of theAfrican marshes, most famous for his deadly propensity to charge onsight--could have given him a fair battle. But woe to the lion thatshould be obliged to face that terrible strength! Even the tiger,sinuous and terrible--armed with fangs like cruel knives and dreadful,raking, rending claws--could not have faced him in a fair fight.

  But these were folk of the tropics, and his superiority was unquestionedamong the northern animals. Even the bull moose had no wish to engagein a stand-up-and-take, close-range, death fight with a grizzly. Thebull caribou left his trail at the sound of his heavy body in thethicket; the wolf pack, most deadly of fighting organizations, were gladto avoid him in the snow. His first cousins, the Alaskan bears, weremore mighty than he, but they were less agile and, probably, lesscunning. Such lesser creatures as wished to continue to enjoy thewinter sunlight stepped softly when they journeyed past his lair.

  He was a peculiar gray in color,--like brown hair that has silvered inmany winters. His huge head was lowered between his high, rockingshoulders, his forelegs were simply great, knotty, cast-iron bunches offiber and tendons; his long claws--worn down by digging in the rocksfor marmots--were like great, curved fingers. As he stepped, hisforefeet swung out, giving to his carriage an arrogance and a swaggerthat would have been amusing if it hadn't been terrible. His wickedteeth gleamed white in foam, and the hair stood stiff at his shoulders.

  There is no forest crisis that presents such a test to human nerves asthe charge of a grizzly. There is no forest voice more fraught withferocity and savagery of the beasts of prey than his low, deep,reverberating growl. Human beings have not yet reached such perfectionof self-mastery that they can hear such a sound, leaping suddenly like athing of substance through the bush, and disregard it. It was to bethat these three foes, journeying toward him along Creek Despair, didnot disregard it now. For all the depth of the snow, he pushed throughthe spruce thicket into the sunlight.

  Thus the three hunters met him--in all his strength and glory--notfifty feet distant at the base of the hill. He seemed to be poised tocharge.

  Bill's keen eyes saw the bear first. All at once its huge outlineagainst the snow leaped to his vision. At the same instant the beargrowled, a sound that halted halted Virginia and Harold in their tracks.For an instant all four figures stood in indescribable tableau: the bearpoised, the three staring, the snowy wastes silent and changeless andunreal.

  It was the last sight in the world that Bill had expected. He hadsupposed that the grizzlies were all in hibernation now; he hadn'tconceived of the possibilities whereby the great creature had beencalled from his sleep. And he knew in one glance the full peril of thesituation.

  Often in his forest travels Bill had
met grizzlies, and nearly always hehad passed them by. Usually the latter were glad to make their escape;and Bill would hasten their departure with shouts of glee. Yet this manknew the grizzly, his power and his wrath, and most of all he knew hisutter unreliability. It is not the grizzly way to stand impassive whenhe is at bay, and neither does he like to flee up hill. If the animaldid think his escape was cut off--a delusion to which the bear familyseem particularly subject--he would charge them with a fury and mightthat had no equal in the North American animal world. And a grizzlycharge is a difficult thing to stop in a distance of fifty feet.

  The presence of Virginia in their party had its influence in Bill'sdecision. In times past he had been willing enough to take a smallmeasure of risk to his own life, but the life of every grizzly in theNorth could not pay for one jot of risk to hers. Lastly he realized atthe first sight of those glowing, angry eyes, the ears back, and thestiff hairs on the shoulder that the grizzly was in a fighting mood.

  For all the complexity of his thought, his decision did not take aninstant. There was no waiting to offer the sporting opportunity toHarold. Virginia was not aware of a lapse in time between the instantthat Bill caught sight of the bear and that in which his gun cameleaping to his shoulder. He had full confidence in the hard-hittingvicious bullet in Harold's thirty-five, and most of all he relied on thefour reserve shots that he supposed lay in the rifle magazine. Thegrizzly dies hard: he felt that all four of them would be needed toarrest the charge that would likely follow his first shot.

  He didn't wait for those great muscles to get into action. The animalwas standing broadside to him, his head turned and red eyes watching; ifBill had his own gun, he would have aimed straight for the space betweenthe eyes. This is never a sportsman's shot; but for an absolutemarksman, in a moment of crisis, it is the surest shot of all. But hedid not know Harold's gun well enough to trust such a shot. Indeed, heaimed for the great shoulder, the region of the lungs and heart. Thegun cracked in the silence.

  The bullet went straight home, ripping through the lungs, tearing thegreat arteries about the heart, shivering even a portion of the heartitself. And yet the grizzly sprang like a demon through the deep snow,straight towards him.

  It is no easy thing to face a grizzly's charge. The teeth gleam in redfoam, the eyes flash, the great shoulders rock. For all the deep snowthat he bounded through, the beast approached at an unbelievable pace.He bawled as he came--awful, reverberating sounds that froze the bloodin the veins. If the course had been open, likely he would have beenupon him before Bill could send home another shot. There could only beone result to such a meeting as this. One blow would strike the lifefrom Bill's body as the lightning strikes it from a tree. But the snowimpeded the bear, and it seemed to Virginia's horrified eyes that Billwould have time to empty the magazine. She saw his fingers race as heworked the lever action of the gun: she saw his eyes lower again to thesights. The bear seemed almost upon him. And she screamed when sheheard the impotent click of the hammer against the breech. Bill hadfires the single shot that was in the gun.

  Before ever he heard the sound Harold remembered. In one wave of horrorhe recalled that he had forgotten to refill the magazine with shells.Yet leaping fast--red and deadly and terrible upon the heels of hisremorse--there came an emotion that seared him like a wall of fire.He saw Bill's fate. By no circumstance of which he could conceive couldthe man escape. A shudder passed over his frame, but it was not ofrevulsion. Rather it was an emotion known well to the beasts of prey,though to human beings it comes but rarely. Here was his enemy, the manhe hated above all living creatures, and the blood lust surged throughhim like a madness. In one wave of ecstasy he felt that he was about tosee the gratification of his hatred.

  In the hands of a brave and loyal man, the rifle Harold carried mightyet have been Bill's salvation. It was a large-caliber, close-range gunof stupendous striking power. Yet Harold didn't lift it to hisshoulder. Part of it was willful omission, mostly it was the paralysisof terror. Yet he would have need enough for the gun if the bear turnedon him. He saw that Bill's had was groping, hopeless though the effortwas, for one of the shells that Harold had given him and which hecarried in his pocket.

  But there was no time to find it, to open his gun and insert it, and tofire before the ravening enemy would be upon him. He made the effortsimply because it was his creed: to struggle as long as his life bloodpulsed in his veins. He knew there was no chance to run or dodge. Thebear could go at thrice his own pace in the deep snow. His last hopehad been that Harold would come to his aid: that the man would stop thebear's charge with Bill's own heavy rifle; but now he knew that Harold'senmity of cowardice had betrayed him.

  But at that instant aid came from an unexpected quarter. Virginia wasnot one to stand helpless or to turn and flee. She remembered thepistol at her belt, and she drew it in a flash of blue steel. True andstraight she aimed toward the glowing eyes of the grizzly.

  At the angle that they struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain,but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at thewounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eyecaught sight of Virginia's form. With a roar he bounded toward her.

  The next instant was one of drama, of incredible stress and movement.For all his mortal wounds, the short distance between the bear and thegirl seemed to recede with tragic swiftness. The animal's cries rangthrough the silent forest: near and far the wild creatures paused intheir occupations to listen. Virginia also stood her ground. There wasno use to flee; she merely stood straight, her eyes gazing along herpistol barrel, firing shot after shot into the animal's head. Becauseit was an automatic, she was able to send home the loads in rapidsuccession.

  But they were little, futile things, with never the shocking power tostop that blasting charge. Her safety still lay in that in which shehad always trusted, the same that had been her fort and her strongholdin all their past adventures. Bill saw the grizzly change in direction;his response was instinctive and instantaneous. He came leaping throughthe snow as if a great hand had hurled him, all of his musclescontracting in response to the swift, immutable command of his will.For all the burden of his snowshoes and the depths of the drifts, hisleap was almost as fast as the grizzly's own. He had but onerealization: that the girl's tender flesh must never know those rendingclaws and fangs. He leaped to intercept the rending charge with his ownbody.

  But his hand had found the shell by now, dropped it into the gun, and asa last instinctive effort, pulled back the lever that slid the cartridgeinto the barrel. There was no time to raise the gun to his shoulder.He pointed it instinctively toward the gray throat. And the end of thebarrel was against the bear's flesh as he pressed the trigger.

  No human eye could follow the lightning events of the next fraction of asecond. All that occurred was over and done in the duration of oneheart-beat,--before the shudder and explosion in the air from therifle's report had passed away. One instant, and the three figuresseemed all together; Bill crouched with rifle held pointed in his arms,Virginia behind him, the grizzly full upon them both. The next, andHarold stood alone in the snow and the silence,--awed, terrified, andestranged as if in a dream.

  Except for the three forms that lay still, half-buried and concealed inthe drifts, it was as if the adventure never occurred. The spruce treesstood straight and aloof as ever. The silence stretched unbroken; itsimmensity had swallowed and smothered the last echo of the rifle reportand the grizzly's roar. There was no movement, seemingly no life,--onlythe drifts and the winter forest and the futile sun, shining downbetween the snow-laden trees.

  Yet he knew vaguely what had occurred. The bullet had gone true. Ithad pierced the animal's neck, breaking the vertebrae of the spinalcolumn, and life had gone out of him as a flame goes out in the wind.But it had come too late to destroy the full force of the charge. Billhad been struck with some portion of the bear's body as he fell and hadbeen hurled like a lifeless doll
into the drifts. Virginia, too, hadreceived some echo of that shock, probably from Bill's body as heshattered down. Now all three lay half-hidden in the snow. Which ofthem lived and which were dead Harold dared not guess.

  But he had no time to go forward and investigate before Bill had sprungto his feet. He had received only a glancing blow; the drifts intowhich he had fallen were soft as pillows. In reality he had never evenlost consciousness. Still subject to the one thought that guided andshaped his actions throughout the adventure, he crawled over toVirginia's side.

  No living man had ever seen his face as white as it was now. His eyeswere wide with the image of horror; he didn't know what wounds the dyingbear might have inflicted on the girl. There was no rend in her whiteflesh, however; and his eye kindled and his face blazed when he saw thatshe yet lived.

  He didn't waste even a small part of his energies by futile pleadingsfor her to waken. He seized her shoulders and shook her gently.

  Instantly her eyes opened. Her full consciousness returned to her witha rush. She was not scratched, not even shocked by the fall, and shereached up for Bill's hands. And instantly, with a laugh on her lips,she sprang to her feet.

  "You killed him?" she asked.

  It was the first breath she had wasted, and no man might hold it againsther. She had only to look at the huge gray form in the drifts to knowher answer. Bill, because he was a woodsman first, last, and always,slipped additional shells into Harold's rifle; then walked over to thebear. He gazed down at its filming eyes.

  "Bear's all dead," he answered cheerfully. And Virginia's heart racedand thrilled, and a delicious exaltation swept through her, when sheglanced down at this woodsman's hands. Big and strong and brown, therewas not a tremor in their fingers.

  The both of them whirled in real and superlative astonishment. Some onewas speaking to them. Some one was asking them if they were both allright. It was a strange voice,--one that they scarcely rememberedever hearing before.

  But they saw at once that the speaker was Harold. He had come with themto-day, quite true. Both of them had almost forgotten his existence.