Stanley's next camp was pitched down the river where the overland
telegraph line crossed the Spider Water, and Bucks, installed in a
smart army tent with a cracker-box for a stool and a packing-case for
an instrument table, was, through Dancing's efforts, put in
communication by wire with Medicine Bend and the west country as far
as Sleepy Cat, where the War Department was establishing an army
post.
Stanley, with Bob Scott, now spent a great deal of time in the saddle
between the bridge and the upper tie-camps, and his presence made
itself felt in the renewed energy everywhere apparent among the
contractors and their men. Bucks, chained to a wire, as he expressed
it, found the days dragging again and would much rather have been at
liberty to ride with Scott, who, when free, hunted in the foot-hills.
One day Bucks was sitting alone in his tent, looking for the
hundredth time over a worn copy of _Harper's Weekly_ that he had
picked up at Casement's camp, when a dog put his nose in the tent
door. A glance revealed merely a disconsolate, unpromising cur, yet
Bucks thought he had seen the dog before and was interested. He seemed
of an all-over alkali-brown hue, scant of hair, scant of tail, and
with only melancholy dewlap ears to suggest a strain of nobler blood
in an earlier ancestry. He looked in with the furtive eye of the
tramp, and as if expecting that a boot or a club would most probably
be his welcome.
But Bucks at the moment was lonely--as lonely as the dog himself--and
as the two fixed their eyes intently on each other, Bucks remembered
that this was the tie foreman's dog, Scuffy.
Scuffy had appeared at the psychological moment. Bucks regarded him in
silence, and the dog perceiving no immediate danger of assault stood,
in silence, returning Bucks's stare. Then watching the boy's eye
carefully, the dog cocked his head just the least bit to one side. It
was a mute appeal, but a moving one. Bucks continued, however, his
non-committal scrutiny, recalling that the foreman had said nothing
good of Scuffy, and the homeless cur stood in doubt as to his
reception. But realizing, perhaps, that he had nothing to lose and
everything to gain, the little vagabond played his last card--he
wagged his stubby tail.
A harder heart than Bucks's might have been touched. The operator held
out his hand. No more was needed; the melancholy tramp stepped
cautiously forward waving his alert flag of truce. He sniffed long and
carefully as he neared Bucks, looked solicitously into the boy's eyes,
and then smelt and licked the proffered hand. It was a token of
submission as plainly expressed as when Friday, kneeling, placed
Robinson Crusoe's foot on his head. Bucks reached into a paper bag
that Bill Dancing had left on the table and gave the dog a cracker.
Scuffy snapped up the offering like one starving. A second cracker and
a third disappeared at single gulps. For the length of the dog, the
size of his mouth appeared enormous. In a moment the cracker-bag was
emptied and Scuffy again licked the friendly hand. It did not take
Bucks long to decide what to do. In another moment he had resolved to
adopt his tramp visitor. The day happened to be Friday, and Bucks at
once renamed him Friday. When Dancing, who had been with Bob Scott
hunting, came in late that night he found Bucks asleep and Scuffy
lying in Dancing's own bed, from which he was ejected only after the
most vigorous language on his own part as well as on that of the
lineman. Even then, Scuffy retreated only as far as Bucks's feet,
where he slept for the rest of the night undisturbed.
"Where did he come from?" growled Dancing in the morning as he sat
with his pipe regarding the intruder, who acted quite at home, with a
critical eye.
Bucks explained that this was the tie foreman's runaway dog, Scuffy,
and beyond Scuffy's first appearance at the tent door he could tell
him nothing. Scuffy simply and promptly assumed a place in camp and
Bucks became, willy-nilly, his sponsor. But his effort to rename him
came to nothing. Scuffy gave no heed when called "Friday," but for
"Scuffy" he sprang to attention instantly.
Bill Dancing decided, off-hand, that "the pup" was worthless. Scott,
whose smile was kindly even when sceptical, only corrected Bill to the
extent of saying that Friday or Scuffy, whoever or whatever he might
be, was no pup; that he was a full-grown dog and in Bob's judgment he
would need no guardian.
One day, shortly after Scuffy had been put upon the pay-roll, Scott
came in from a trip after venison with word that there were black
bears in the hill canyons. The thought of bear's meat aroused every
one, and Stanley suggested a bear hunt. Scott had to send down to
Stanley's ranch at Medicine Bend for his dogs and some delay followed.
But when the three hounds arrived there was excitement enough to
compensate for it. One of the dogs was a big black fellow and his
companions were brown full-bloods. The hounds, one and all, set on
Scuffy the moment they reached camp, and it was only by the most
dexterous manoeuvres that the strange dog escaped being eaten alive.
Indeed, Bob Scott remarked at once that if Scuffy should survive the
greetings of his new comrades he would prove his right to live. The
hounds always set upon him at meal-times, usually chewed him at
bed-time, and harried him at all times.
To a less hopeful temperament than Scuffy's, life would not have
seemed worth living. It was only Bucks who insured him anything at all
to eat, and the enmity of the big, rangy hounds for the lean and
hungry tramp dog left him no peace save when they were fighting in
dreams. To accept life under such conditions indicated that Scuffy was
a philosopher, and he accepted the conditions cheerfully, filching
what he could of sustenance from the common pot and licking his
troublesome wounds at night after his truculent companions had gone to
sleep.
As soon as the tie-supply trouble had been lessened Stanley took
things more leisurely and the interval afforded the opportunity for
the delayed bear hunt. Bob Scott and Dancing were to go with Stanley,
and Bucks being freed for one day from his key was invited to be of
the party. All hands were in the saddle by daybreak, and Scott's
hounds were baying and tearing around camp wild with excitement.
At the last moment a complication arose. Scuffy, who until the moment
of starting had for prudential reasons--that is, to avoid being eaten
up--remained in obscurity, joined the hunters. Every one in turn tried
to drive him back, but long practice had made him expert in dodging
missiles and had rendered him insensible to reproach. The hounds were
too filled with the prospect of sport to pay any attention to Scuffy.
In vain, Bob Scott tried to set them on him and drive him back to
camp. On this occasion, when bullying would plainly have been
justified, no hound would assail Scuffy. Bucks drove him again and
again from the flank of the advance only to have the mortification of
seeing him reappear a mile or two farther along the trail, and it was
at last decided to leave him to his fate at the paw of a bear--which
no one made doubt he was certain to suffer. At that moment Bucks and
Bill Dancing, riding together, saw a deer frightened from a thicket
running toward the river. Bucks jumped from his horse and lifted his
rifle to take a shot, but by the time he was ready to fire the deer
had vanished.
Led by Scott, the hunters rode at once into the rough country to the
west, where in the mountain fastnesses the bears loved to feed. The
hounds gave tongue vigorously, and Scuffy, who had by this time not
only established himself but had impudently taken the lead and was
heading the pack, barked loudest and longest.
"Did anybody ever see conceit equal to that?" demanded Stanley. "Look
at that cur leading the hounds."
Bucks was mortified and expressed his regret.
"Don't mind him, Bucks," remarked Dancing consolingly. "That dog won't
bother long. The first time the hounds run in, the bear will finish
_him_."
Bucks did not know precisely what Bill meant by "running in," but he
was not to be long in doubt. The pack struck a fresh trail almost at
once and the hunters had a long ride along a mountain-side covered
with fallen timber and cut by innumerable wash-outs that made the
riding hard and dangerous. Scott found intervals to encourage Bucks,
whose youth and inexperience made his task of keeping up with the
others a difficult one. "Take it easy," said Scott encouragingly as
the operator tried to urge his mount.
"I am keeping you all back, Bob."
"Plenty of time. You are doing wonders for mountain-riding. When we
close in on the bear don't be too keen to get near him. You wouldn't
be safe for a minute on your horse if the dogs didn't keep the bear
busy. As long as the dogs worry the bear you are safe. A bear will
never chase a man as long as a dog keeps at him. It's only when the
dogs refuse to go in any longer that the danger begins. When that
happens, look out. Keep a respectful distance all the time and a road
open behind you. That's all there is to a bear fight."
As he spoke, the hounds yelped sharply and Scott spurred forward. The
hunters were threading a grove of quaking asp and the dogs had come
up with the bear on an opening of shale rock surrounded by down
timber. Throwing his reins and advancing cautiously on foot, Stanley,
followed by his companions, who spread themselves in a wide
semicircle, took his place, the others, as they best could, choosing
their own.
The bear, a full-grown male, met the onset of the hounds with grim
confidence. The dogs encircled him with a ring of ferocious teeth,
running in from behind whenever they could to nip the huge beast in
the haunches or on the flank. But the surprise of the encounter was
Scuffy.
"Look," cried Bill Dancing, under whose wing Bucks had taken his post.
"Look at him! Why, the pup is a world-beater!"
In truth, Scuffy was the liveliest and most impudent dog in the pack,
and when the fight was fully on, managed to worry the angry bear more
than the hounds did. Within a moment the black hound, over-bold,
imprudently rushed the bear in front. A paw darting from the huge
beast caught him like a trip-hammer and stretched him helpless. In
that moment the bear exposed himself to Stanley's rifle and a shot
rang across the mountain-side. Scott watched the result anxiously. But
the slug instead of dropping the bear served only to enrage him. For
an instant the two hounds lost their heads and the infuriated bear
charged Bucks and Bill Dancing.
The shale opening became a scene of confusion. Exposing himself
recklessly, Scott tried to urge the dogs forward, but they had lost
their nerve. It needed only this to upset everything. The hunters
closed in together, and the critical moment had come; deaf alike to
command and entreaty, the two hounds refused to go in, and Scuffy,
flying wildly about the bear, seemed unable to check him. Dancing
stopped long enough to take one shot, and ran--with Bucks, who had
found no chance to shoot, following. The bear gained fast on the
long-legged lineman and his boy companion. A wash-out, hidden by a
clump of bushes, lay directly in the path of flight. Dancing,
perceiving it, dashed to the left and escaped. He shouted a warning to
Bucks, who, not understanding, plunged straight over the declivity
and sprawled into the wash-out with the bear after him. Catching his
rifle, the boy scrambled to his feet with his pursuer less than twenty
feet away. Between the two there was only open ground, and the bear
was scrambling for Bucks when Scuffy sprang down the shale bank and
confronted the enemy.
It looked like certain death for Scuffy, but the tramp dog did not
hesitate. He rushed at the bear with a fury of snapping, though not
without a lively respect for the sweep of the brute's fore paws. The
little dog, freeing himself forever in that moment from the stigma of
cur, put up a fight that astonished the big brute.
Scuffy raced at him first on one side and then on the other, bounding
in and out like a rubber ball, dashing across his front and running
clear around the circling bear, nipping even an occasional mouthful of
hair from his haunches. He made noise enough for a pack of dogs and
simulated a fury that gave the bear the surprise of his life. Bucks
realized that only his four-legged friend stood between him and
destruction and that so unequal a contest could not endure long.
Skilful as the little fellow was, he was pitted against an antagonist
quite as quick and wary. The clumsiness of the bear was no more than
seeming, and any one of the terrific blows he dealt at Scuffy with his
huge paw would have stretched a man lifeless. Bucks, collecting his
disordered faculties, raised his rifle to help his champion with a
shot. His heart beat like a hammer in his throat, but he knew there
was only one thing to do, that was to get the rifle-sights carefully
lined in his eye and shoot when Scuffy gave him an opening.
It came in a moment when the bear turned to smash Scuffy on his flank.
Bucks fired. To his amazement, no result followed. The failure of the
bear to show any sign of being hit stunned him, and he drew his
revolver, never expecting to escape alive, when two shots rang across
the wash as close together as if fired by the same hand. The bear sank
like a falling tree. Yet he rallied and again rushed for Bucks,
despite Scuffy's stout opposition and the yells from above, and
finally halted only when Bob Scott, jumping into the wash-out,
confronted him with a knife. There was an instant of apprehension,
broken by a third shot from Dancing's rifle across the gully, and the
bear crumpled lifeless almost at Scott's feet.
The scout turned to Bucks as he stood dazed by his narrow escape.
Stanley, above, shouted. And Bill Dancing, carrying his empty rifle,
and with his face bleeding from the briers, made his way down the
opposite side of the wash. Scuffy, mounting the body of his dead foe,
barked furiously.
The little dog was the real hero of the encounter. He had paid
his keep and earned his way as a member of the family and as a
bear-fighter. When Bucks picked up his rifle he told Scott of his
bad miss in the critical moment of the fight. Bob took the gun from
his hands and examined the sights good-naturedly. Bucks had
neglected to change the elevation after he had aimed at the deer
an hour earlier.
"Next time you shoot at a bear twenty feet away, don't leave your
sights set for two hundred yards," was all Scott said.