I ran till I got a stitch in my side, and then slowed down to a
dog-trot. The one thing to do was to get a long way ahead of my
pursuers, for surely at the outset they would stick like hounds to my
trail.
A mile or more below the gorge I took to the stream and waded. It
was slippery, dangerous work, for the current tore about my legs and
threatened to upset me. After a little I crossed to the left bank. Here
the slope of the canyon was thick with grass that hid my tracks. It was
a 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 the
frying-pan into the fire. Hurriedly I examined my Winchester. The
magazine contained ten cartridges. What luck that Stockton had neglected
to unload it! This made things look better. I had salt and pepper, a
knife, and matches--thanks to the little leather case--and so I could
live in the woods.
It was too late for regrets. I might have freed Dick somehow or even
held the men at bay, but I had thought only of escape. The lack of nerve
and judgment stung me. Then I was bitter over losing my mustang and
outfit.
But on thinking it all over, I concluded that I ought to be thankful for
things as they were. I was free, with a whole skin. That climb out of
the gorge had been no small risk. How those bullets had whistled and
hissed!
“I'm pretty lucky,” I muttered. “Now to get good and clear of this
vicinity. They'll ride down the trail after me. Better go over this
ridge into the next canyon and strike down that. I must go down. But how
far? What must I strike for?”
I took a long look at the canyon. In places the stream showed, also the
trail; then there were open patches, but I saw no horses or men. With
a grim certainty that I should be lost in a very little while, I turned
into the cool, dark forest.
Every stone and log, every bit of hard ground in my path, served to help
hide my trail. Herky-Jerky very likely had the cowboy's skill at finding
tracks, but I left few traces of my presence on that long slope. Only an
Indian or a hound could have trailed me. The timber was small and rough
brush grew everywhere. Presently I saw light ahead, and I came to an
open space. It was a wide swath in the forest. At once I recognized the
path of an avalanche. It sloped up clean and bare to the gray cliffs far
above. Below was a great mass of trees and rocks, all tangled in black
splintered ruin. I pushed on across the path, into the forest, and up
and down the hollows. The sun had gone down behind the mountain, and the
shadows were gathering when I came to another large canyon. It looked so
much like the first that I feared I had been travelling in a circle. But
this 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 ledges
of rock. The far side of this canyon was steep and craggy. Soon I
discovered a place where I thought it would be safe to build a fire. My
clothes were wet, and the air had grown keen and cold. Gathering a store
of wood, I made my fire in a niche. For a bed I cut some sweet-scented
pine boughs (I thought they must be from a balsam-tree), and these I
laid close up in a rocky corner. Thus I had the fire between me and
the opening, and with plenty of wood to burn I did not fear visits from
bears or lions. At last I lay down, dry and warm indeed, but very tired
and hungry.
Darkness closed in upon me. I saw a few stars, heard the cheery crackle
of 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. The
fire had died out completely, there was frost on the stones. To build up
another fire and to bathe my face in the ice-water of the brook were my
first tasks. The air was sweet; it seemed to freeze as I breathed, and
was a bracing tonic. I was tingling all over, and as hungry as a starved
wolf.
I set forth on a hunt for game. Even if the sound of a shot betrayed
my whereabouts I should have to abide by it, for I had to eat. Stepping
softly along, I glanced about me with sharp eyes. Deer trails were
thick. The bottom of this canyon was very wide, and grew wider as I
proceeded. Then the pines once more became large and thrifty. I judged I
had come down the mountain, perhaps a couple of thousand feet below
the camp in the gorge. I flushed many of the big blue grouse, and I saw
numerous coyotes, a fox, and a large brown beast which moved swiftly
into a thicket. It was enough to make my heart rise in my throat. To
dream of hunting bears was something vastly different from meeting one
in a lonely canyon.
Just after this I saw a herd of deer. They were a good way off. I began
to slip from tree to tree, and drew closer. Presently I came to a little
hollow with a thick, short patch of underbrush growing on the opposite
side. 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. Trembling
with eagerness, I leveled my rifle. I could not get the sight to stay
steady on the deer. Even then, with the rifle wobbling in my intense
excitement, I thought of how beautiful that wild creature was. Straining
every 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 down
in a heap.
I tore through the bushes, and had almost reached the bottom of the
hollow 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 was
dead. My bullet had entered high above the shoulder at the juncture of
the neck. Though I had only aimed at him generally, I took a good deal
of pride in my first shot at a deer.
Fortunately my pen-knife had a fair-sized blade. With it I decided to
cut out part of the deer and carry it back to my camp. Then it occurred
to me that I might as well camp where I was. There were several jumbles
of rock and a cliff within a stone's-throw of where I stood. Besides, I
must get used to making camp wherever I happened to be. Accordingly, I
took hold of the deer, and dragged him down the hollow till I came to a
leaning slab of rock.
Skinning a deer was, of course, new to me. I haggled the flesh somewhat
and cut through the skin often, my knife-blade being much too small for
such work. Finally I thought it would be enough for me to cut out the
haunches, and then I got down to one haunch. It had bothered me how I
was going to sever the joint, but to my great surprise I found there
did not seem to be any connection between the bones. The haunch came out
easily, 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 a
stick solved the problem of cooking. Then it was that the little flat
flask, full of mixed salt and pepper, rewarded me for the long carrying
of it. I was hungry, and I feasted.
By this time the sun shone warm, and the canyon was delightful. I roamed
around, sat on sunny stones, and lay in the shade of pines. Deer browsed
in the glades. When they winded or saw me they would stand erect, shoot
up their long cars, and then leisurely lope away. Coyotes trotted out
of thickets and watched me suspiciously. I could have shot several,
but deemed it wise to be saving of my ammunition. Once I heard a low
drumming. I could not imagine what made it. Then a big blue grouse
strutted out of a patch of bushes. He spread his wings and tail and neck
feathers, after the fashion of a turkey-gobbler. It was a flap or shake
of his wings that produced the drumming. I wondered if he intended, by
his actions, to frighten me away from his mate's nest. So I went toward
him, and got very close before he flew. I caught sight of his mate in
the bushes, and, as I had supposed, she was on a nest. Though wanting to
see her eggs or young ones, I resisted the temptation, for I was afraid
if 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 were
not in sight. The canyon widened down the slope, and I was pretty sure
that it opened out flat into the great pine forest of Penetier. The only
thing that bothered me was the loss of my mustang and outfit; I could
not reconcile myself to that. So I wandered about with a strange, full
sense of freedom such as I had never before known. What was to be the
end of my adventure I could not guess, and I wasted no time worrying
over it.
The knowledge I had of forestry I tried to apply. I studied the north
and south slopes of the canyon, observing how the trees prospered on the
sunny side. Certain saplings of a species unknown to me had been gnawed
fully ten feet from the ground. This puzzled me. Squirrels could not
have done it, nor rabbits, nor birds. Presently I hit upon the solution.
The bark and boughs of this particular sapling were food for deer, and
to 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 roots
was 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 held
the water! I pried bark off dead trees and dug into decayed logs to find
the insect enemies of the trees. The open places, where little colonies
of pine sprouts grew, seemed generally to be down-slope from the parent
trees. It was easy to tell the places where the wind had blown the
seeds.
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 cooked
my supper and made my bed. When I had laid up a store of firewood it was
nearly dark.
With night came the coyotes. The carcass of the deer attracted them, and
they approached from all directions. At first it was fascinating to hear
one howl far off in the forest, and then to notice the difference in the
sound as he came nearer and nearer. The way they barked and snapped out
there in the darkness was as wild a thing to hear as any boy could have
wished for. It began to be a little too much for me. I kept up a bright
fire, and, though not exactly afraid, I had a perch picked out in the
nearest tree. Suddenly the coyotes became silent. Then a low, continuous
growling, a snapping of twigs, and the unmistakable drag of a heavy
body over the ground made my hair stand on end. Gripping my rifle, I
listened. I heard the crunch of teeth on bones, then more sounds of
something being dragged down the hollow. The coyotes began to bark
again, but now far back in the forest.
Some beast had frightened them. What was it? I did not know whether a
bear would eat deer flesh, but I thought not. Perhaps timber-wolves
had disturbed the coyotes. But would they run from wolves? It came to me
suddenly--a mountain-lion!
I hugged my fire, and sat there, listening with all my ears, imagining
every rustle of leaf to be the step of a lion. It was long before the
thrills and shivers stopped chasing over me, longer before I could
decide to lie down. But after a while the dead quiet of the forest
persuaded 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 I
had 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 to
the ground, plainly marked the trail. But search as I might, I could
not find the track of the animal that had dragged off the deer. After
following the trail for a few rods, I decided to return to camp and cook
breakfast before going any farther. While I was at it I cut many thin
slices of venison, and, after roasting them, I stored them away in the
capacious pocket of my coat.
My breakfast finished, I again set out to see what had become of the
remains of the deer. In two or three places the sharp hoofs had cut
lines in the soft earth, and there were tufts of whitish-gray hair
elsewhere. A hundred yards or more down the hollow I came to a bare spot
where recently there had been a pool of water. Here I found cat tracks
as 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 enormous
brute he must have been! I cast fearful glances into the surrounding
thickets.
It was not needful to travel much farther. Under a bush well hidden in a
clump of trees lay what now remained of my deer. A patch of gray hair, a
few long bones, a split skull, and two long ears--no more! Even the hide
was gone. Perhaps the coyotes had finished the job after the lion had
gorged himself, but I did not think so. It seemed to me that coyotes
would have scattered the remains. Those two long ears somehow seemed
pathetic. 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 a
glade below me. I had to fight myself to keep from shooting. The wind
blew rather strong in my face, which probably accounted for the deer not
winding me.
Then the whip-like crack of a rifle riveted me where I stood. One of the
deer fell, and the others bounded away. I saw a tall man stride down
the slope and into the glade. He was not like any of the loggers or
lumbermen. They were mostly brawny and round-shouldered. This man was
lithe, erect; he walked like athletes I had seen. Surely I should find a
friend in him, and I lost no time in running down into the glade. He saw
me 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--the
keenest and clearest I had ever looked into. They shone with a kindly
light, otherwise I might have thought his face hard and stern. His
shoulders were very wide, his arms long, his hands enormous. His
buckskin shirt attracted my attention to his other clothes, which looked
like leather overalls or heavy canvas. A belt carried a huge knife and a
number of shells of large caliber; the Winchester he had was exceedingly
long and heavy, and of an old pattern. The look of him brought back my
old fancy of Wetzel or Kit Carson.
“So I'm lost,” I concluded, “and don't know what to do. I daren't try to
find the sawmill. I won't go back to Holston just yet.”
“An' why not, youngster? 'Pears to me you'd better make tracks from
Penetier.”