“Plant it, then,” Steve growled.
George, eager to slay the monster, fired quickly.
The smoke cleared away, and there lay the bear, in exactly the same
position.
“It is stone-dead, surely enough!” Will said, as though surprised.
“No; I fancied I saw it move a little,” Mr. Lawrence said.
“Then let us all fire a round of balls into it,” Steve suggested.
“I won’t have it riddled with shot!” George said angrily. “I saw just
where to hit it, and I hit it there, and it’s dead.”
But his wish was disregarded, and some of the hunters cowardly fired.
Then they advanced cautiously, still fearing that the bear might have
life enough in him to give battle. But the “bearish head” was not raised;
the “thick snout” was not dilated.
Steve, who was ahead, suddenly gasped out a plaintive “Oh.” Then the
others also saw. The sun shone through the trees, and left a peculiar
shadow on the grass and brushwood. That was the bear.
“Let us clap this bear into the museum,” Stephen presently observed.
The disgusted hunters concluded to separate, and meet at a certain time
and place, if they didn’t get lost or eaten up.
Will wandered off alone, and shot scores of useful birds and animals--not
useful to him, as a hunter, but useful in the economy of nature. But
after one shot had been thus thrown away, a yell of anger and terror rang
through the forest, and with his heart beating time to his footsteps,
Will hurried in the direction of that yell.
He soon came up to a man, sitting on a fallen tree, distorting his
features, and nursing his finger in his mouth, with a gurgling noise,
peculiar to a sobbing school-boy trying to soothe the pain inflicted by a
hasty-tempered wasp.
“Hello, there!” cried this man. “Did you shoot that bullet?”
“Yes, I have just discharged my gun,” Will answered. “Did--did it hit
you, sir? If so, I am extremely sorry, for, I assure you, I had no
intention--”
“That’ll do!” broke in the wounded man, removing his finger for a
moment. “It is plain enough that _you_ are no hunter,” contemptuously. “A
genuine hunter doesn’t go cracking around like a boy with a pop-gun, nor
talk like as if he was writing to the post-master general. But, I say, do
you know what you have done? You have smashed my little finger!”
“What? Are you really hurt? Did the ball strike your finger?”
“Of course it did,” angrily; “and it’ll be the dearest bullet you ever
bought! I tell you, I’m sick of having city chaps tearing through our
woods, and scaring the deer and things, and if they keep it up much
longer, the whole population’ll be shot off. Oh, cracky, but my finger
smarts! I was never shot before.”
“Let me see your wound,” Will said.
But the “child of nature” showed no disposition to let Will examine his
injured member, and Will was both amused and relieved to hear him make
the following observation: “No, it ain’t so much the finger that troubles
me; it’ll soon heal; but I had a bully good silver ring on it, that I
found in an old dust-heap, and that there bullet has busted it.”
Then the shooter stepped up to the rustic, saying: “Come, I must see
your finger. If it is badly hurt I will bind it up for you; I have the
materials all ready in my pockets.”
“Well, _you_ are quite right in carrying rags, and salve, and thread, and
pins, and soft cotton, and strings, and such trash, always stuffed in
your pockets, for you look like as if you might blow your head off any
minute,” the wounded man insultingly said, as he got a nearer view of
Will.
Without further delay he submitted his finger to Will’s examination. Will
presently observed: “I think your strong silver ring saved the finger,
if not the entire hand, from a severe wound, as the bullet struck its
ornamental carvings and then glanced. In a day or so your finger will
be as sound as ever. Well, I’m sorry I hurt you, but I must be off.
Good-day.”
“Now, just wait a minute,” said the man with the silver ring. “You don’t
know how much I think of a good ring. I’m a very affectionate feller, and
as there’s nothing else for me to take to, I think a heap of a good ring.
And this one’s ruined and busted now. It may be ever so long before I can
get as good a one--and you made fun of it, too! I say, what did you say
about ‘carvings.’”
“But the ring saved your hand,” Will persisted.
“I don’t say nothing about that; but your bullet has spoilt my ring, and
I mean to have the worth of it. Do you understand that? I ask for the
worth of it.”
“Certainly; how much is your ring worth?”
“Eh? Well, I don’t know; it was a pretty valuable ring. How high will you
go?”
Poor Will was becoming tired. He longed to leave the barbarian’s company,
and was fumbling in his pocket for a small gold piece that was there,
when a rustling in the underwood drew his attention.
“Wumblers! There’ll be another bullet here next! Whoop! here comes
another hunter full drive! Oh! cracky, there’s buck after him! Lemme see
your gun, and I’ll show you how to knock ’em over.”
This was quite true. Romantic Marmaduke had stumbled on the fresh track
of a deer, and following on, had soon come up with it.
So much he freely confessed to his inquiring fellow-hunters. But how
the deer came to give chase--whether he showed the white feather at the
critical moment, or whether he chanted poetry to the hunted creature, and
so infuriated it past endurance--is a question which he could not, or
would not, answer.
Will’s heart beat fast. Here was a large deer within range of his rifle.
If he should kill it on the spot he would achieve a valiant deed, as well
as put an end to Marmaduke’s ignominious flight.
“Lemme see you gun,” the man said eagerly.
Will did not choose to comply with his request, but levelled his rifle at
the approaching animal, and fired.
While hunting the last two days, he had suffered so many disappointments
that he himself was perhaps somewhat surprised to see the deer plunge
forward and gasp out his life in a short but awful agony.
“Good for you, old feller; you can shoot some, after all!” the forester
ejaculated.
Marmaduke stopped his flight, saw Will, heaved a sigh, and said
pathetically, “It is hard to see the noble beast cut off in all his pride
and strength.”
“Yes, but better than to suffer from his fury, I hope;” Will replied.
“But how under the sun did the chase begin?” he asked, glancing from his
rifle to the deer with intense satisfaction.
But the chased one was reticent on that point, as stated above; and to
evade an answer, he turned to the man with the marred silver ring, and
asked, “What gentleman is this?”
“What was it you said about cutting up the buck, just now, stranger?”
this gentleman eagerly inquired. “If you’re going to cut him up, I’ll
help you; and for my share I’ll take a haunch.”
Alas! Though forest-born and familiar with woodland scenes and noble
deer, this man had not a poetic soul, and he interpreted Marmaduke’s
beautiful apostrophe as a wish that the deer should be cut up!
“_Your_ share! What have _you_ to do with it?” Marmaduke inquired, coming
down to the things of this world with startling abruptness.
“Well, this here feller went and shot me; and I’m going to help you cut
up your deer; and for all my trouble and suffering I only ask for a
haunch. I’ll have it, too!” determinedly.
_Chapter XLI._
HOW WILL LOST HIS DEER.
Marmaduke now demanded and received a brief explanation of affairs.
Seeing a way out of the difficulty, he pointed obliquely over the injured
man’s shoulder, and said, “Will, there is a plump and sweet partridge in
that tree;--no, lower down;--further on;--hadn’t you better shoot it for
him?”
After a moment’s deliberation the man who loved a good silver ring agreed
to be satisfied with the partridge.
Yet an evil smile curved his lips--a smile that foreboded mischief to
something--perhaps to the partridge.
Will had no sooner fired than a howl of awful agony burst from the man’s
lips, and having spread his huge hands over the region where the ignorant
suppose their vitals are situated, he bowed his body downwards, and there
passed over his face a look of suffering that, in sublime tragedy, almost
equalled the frightful spasms so graphically portrayed in our patent
medicine almanacs.
_Almost_--nothing can quite come up to the patent medicine almanacs in
that respect.
With a voice that was appalling in its unrestrained vehemence, he fell
to delivering hideous ecphoneses,--too hideous, in fact, to be repeated
here,--and then gasped faintly, “You’ve done it now!”
Poor Will! He was nearly crazed with grief.
“Oh!” he groaned, “have I killed him? Have I taken a fellow-creature’s
life? Has my hastiness at last had a fatal result?”
“Oh,” Marmaduke murmured, “how could Will’s ball glance so as to enter
that man’s body?”
For several seconds the two unlucky hunters stood perfectly still, held
to the spot by devouring horror and anguish.
During this time, the forester seemed to be undergoing exquisite pain;
but presently, with an effort worthy of a hero, he struggled to an erect
posture, and said, with a faltering tongue: “Young men--perhaps--I’m,
I’m gone.--I--can’t blame--you, sir;--a man--can’t tell--how his
ball--may glance.--Go,--both of you,--go--and get a--doctor.--Bring
a--doctor--you,” to Will; “and you--” to Marmaduke, “go east--from--from
here--half a-mile--to my--father’s.--I--I--can stay--alone.”
“Poor, poor fellow,” said Will, with tears in his eyes. “Can you stay
here alone and suffer till we come back?”
“Yes,” groaned the wounded man. “I can--stay-till--the
other--fellow--finds my--father.--It won’t--be long.”
“Let me at least see your wound before I go,” Will entreated. “Perhaps I
could ease you, or even save your life.”
“Go! oh go!” urged the wounded man. “I’ll--hold out--if you are--quick.”
Then the two hunters strode sorrowfully away in their different
directions--Will with a vague notion that the nearest surgeon lived
several miles to the south--Marmaduke thinking that the “peasants” of his
country are a hardy and noble race.
They were barely out of sight on their errands of mercy when a change
most magical came over the sufferer’s face. Two minutes before, and
his features wore the tortured look of an invalid “before taking our
prescription;” now they wore the happy smirk of a convalescent, relieved
from all pain, “after taking our prescription.”
Then, villain-like, he muttered: “I hardly expected to make so much out
of the two fools--a whole deer! That’s striking it pretty rich! I don’t
shoot a deer in a month; but this is just as good, for I can make off
with this one at my leisure. Well, I reckoned that little ‘wound’ would
work.”
A horrible chuckle escaped from his lips, he sprang to his feet as sound
in health as a person could expect to be, walked up to Will’s deer, and
coolly began to drag it away into the depths of the forest. All that part
of the forest was known to him, and he soon dragged his prey into a place
of concealment where its rightful owners would hardly find it.
“There,” he muttered, “I guess I have dragged the old feller far enough.
He’s safe enough here till I can take him home. Now, they haven’t been
gone long, and if they keep on, they may get lost; and it’s mean to have
’em get lost on a fool’s errand. Perhaps this’ll bring ’em back on a keen
run. How they will hunt for me and the deer!”
As the thief spoke he retraced his steps a little way, discharged a
pistol concealed on his person, and then slunk back to his hiding-place.
Yes, he was so humane that he did not wish the two deluded hunters to
bring succor to a man who did not need it.
The report of his pistol had the desired effect. Both Will and Marmaduke
heard it; and fearing that the poor wretch was attacked by some foe,
human or otherwise, they hastened back to the scene of bruises and
wounds, meanness and trickery.
Of course they found nothing, and, although they were heroes, they were
unable to track the knave to his hiding-place. Will was furious. He had
felt so grieved at having wounded a fellow-creature; so proud, a moment
before, of having been the first to kill a deer; and now he naturally and
correctly concluded that the “wound” was a mere ruse on the rogue’s part,
in order the more surely to get possession of the deer.
“Will, I took the fellow to be a very fair example of our peasants; an
honest, ingenuous and hardy forester. How bitterly I am deceived.”
Will replied: “Well, _I_ took the fellow for a hypocrite and a downright
knave from the first. It isn’t so much the deer,--though that is really
a great loss for me,--but the depravity that the man has shown, that
grieves me. And I was just going to give him a new dollar gold piece
to squander his affection on! But, Marmaduke,” with a flash of his old
jovialness, “don’t talk about _peasants_ and _peasantry_, for free
America knows no such word. Marmaduke, I’m afraid your trip to Europe in
the summer filled your mind with some ridiculous notions. Shake them off,
and be yourself again.”
“Well, Will, you are in the right. Now, suppose that we look for the
partridge, for I believe your ball killed it.”
“No, Marmaduke. I missed it, for I saw it fly away untouched, just as
that man doubled himself up and began to howl.”
“Then you took it for granted that he received the ball?”
“Yes. Well, it is useless to remain here, so let us hurry on to the
trysting-place, due west, if we want to meet the others. But if I
don’t unearth that wretch to-morrow, it will be because--because his
ill-gotten deer poisons him!”
Having taken this dreadful resolution, the two set off for the
rendezvous, where they arrived just in time to meet with the other
hunters.
“Ho!” cried Steve, when he observed Will’s gloomy looks. “Ho, old fellow!
your face _indicates_ a _moody mood_.”
“Well,” snarled Will, “have you shot some school-boy’s grammar, and read
it through?”
Then he narrated his encounter with the man in the forest.
It was received with plaintive cries of astonishment, anger, and horror.
“Well, Will,” said Steve after the first paroxysms of rage had subsided,
“I gather two morals--morals full of instruction, too--from your
narrative.”
As no one inquired what these “morals” might be, the speaker was obliged
to resume his discourse rather awkwardly. But no one could cow Steve into
silence.
“Yes, boys; two morals----”
A pause--in vain.
“Two morals, I say. In the first place, when you are in a forest like
this, always protect the fourth member of the left paw with a sculptured
silver ring. In the second place, never fire at a partridge when a
jewelled rustic occupies a log some thirty feet southeast of your left
ear, as Marmaduke hints this one did. It is as dangerous as a nest of
hornets on the North Pole.”
“Don’t be so atrocious,” said Charles. “In my mind’s eye, I can look
back eight years or so, and see a battered-knuckled urchin called Steve
Goodfellow, wriggling on a bench in a certain Sunday School, and turning
idly round and round a _beautiful_ silver ring, that adorned first one
and then another of his fingers.”
Steve sat down so suddenly that he burst the paper collar around his
neck. However, he took no notice of this, but changed the subject and
diverted the boys’ attention by saying: “I say, Will and Marmaduke,
George, as well as you, has had disappointments to-day. I shouldn’t
relate this little anecdote, if George hadn’t given me permission;
because it would be too mean for even _me_, and _that_ is saying a good
deal. O dear! I’m sorry, boys; but I can’t help it!”
“Well, Steve, there is one thing in your favor,” Charles said soothingly.
“You always confine what you are pleased to call your _meanness_ to us
boys; and we can survive it all--in fact, we expect it from you, old
fellow.”
“Thank you, Charley; you can see below the surface, and see just how
heavily and guiltily my great heart beats when I attempt to insult
over you boys. But now for my anecdote. George and I meet in a ‘bowery
glade.’ Though we glare wickedly round in search of prey, I see nothing
but Nature’s loveliness. George espies a phenomenon high up in a monster
of the forest, ‘an old primeval giant,’ whose branching top fanned the
blue sky. In other words, he espies something queer, perched high in a
grand old fir. It is large; it is strange; it moves. ‘It is a creature
of the air,’ thinks George. ‘It _is_! It is a bird new to science! Oh,
what pleasing discovery do I make? Am I about to cover myself with
glory? I am! I feel it in my inmost heart, my heart of heart. Steve,’ he
continues, ‘I know my destiny--the pursuit of science. My fate is now
marked out; I shall write _ornithologies_! Now I must shoot this percher
down; I cannot climb to catch it, though more’s the pity.’ O boys, it
was, alas! a bird’s nest! A great big bird’s nest! And when he fired, it
was no more. This is my mournful tale: this is my anecdote.”
“Steve, don’t relate any more such anecdotes,” said Charles, “or you will
burst your ‘great heart’ as you have burst your paper collar.”
“Steve, did George tell you _how_ you might relate that incident?” Will
asked suspiciously. “But, Steve,” he added gravely, “be good enough to
tell me what you have shot to-day to make you so merry.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” Steve replied grimly. “_I shot the barrel
of my gun all to pieces._”
“What?” Will asked, at a loss to take Steve’s meaning.
“In other words,” Mr. Lawrence said, “Stephen overcharged his gun, and it
burst--burst with a vengeance.”
“It seems to me that a good many things have burst, or failed to burst,
to-day,” George muttered.
Then they proceeded to their camp,--as Marmaduke loved to call the
miserable shanty that barely afforded them shelter,--affecting to carry
their guns and their almost empty game-bags as though they were veteran
hunters.
Each one was thinking about the deer which was rightfully Will’s, and
each one felt that the affair was not over yet.
* * * * *
It is with some real reluctance that the scene with the forester is
introduced, because romancers take altogether too much delight in
parading villainy; but at one time this scene seemed, in a measure, to be
necessary to the construction of this story. Afterwards the writer had
not the moral courage to leave it out.
Most readers can remember that in almost all novels that they have read,
(excepting, of course, the “intensely interesting” ones,) there was at
least one chapter which, taken by itself, seemed tiresome and useless;
but which, woven in skilfully, and taken in connection with the whole,
was necessary to the perfection of the novel.
After writing these two paragraphs, in order to disarm all hostile
criticism, we shall imagine a conscientious reader’s referring to this
chapter, after he has carefully perused the entire story, and saying,
with a horrible fear that his usual insight into things has forsaken him:
“Well, I can’t see the particular need and worth of this chapter,” while
we furnish this consoling information--“_Neither can we!_”
Now, carpers, if you can apprehend the meaning of all this, draw out your
engines and bring them into play.
Another point: Let not the conscientious reader rack his brains in a
vain endeavor to discover what particular “follies,” or “foibles,” are
attacked in this chapter, for the writer himself does not know; though
he is morally certain that he has not written these two chapters just to
injure the trade in silver rings.
_Chapter XLII._
WHAT CURIOSITY COST THE HUNTERS.
Next morning the mighty Nimrods breakfasted, in imagination, on their
deer; and then struck out into the forest, resolved to unearth the rogue
who had gulled poor Will.
But soon the fickle hunters concluded to secure the services of an
officer of the law, and on reaching the edge of the forest they were
directed where to find such a person.
They came up with this man in his orchard, but whether he was gathering
apples or only eating them they could not guess. He listened patiently to
the story of their wrongs (they did not give it _exactly_ as it happened,
but they did not falsify it at all), and then told them that they might
go on with their hunt and not trouble their heads about it further, for
he would soon overhaul the villain.
The hunters lingered irresolutely, but the man seemed to know his own
business best, and with a peremptory “good day” he scrambled into a
patriarchal apple-tree, and fell to shaking down his apples so recklessly
and disrespectfully that they thought it prudent to withdraw.
“I will catch the rascal myself, after all,” Will declared.
“Yes, let us penetrate far into this old forest,” Marmaduke added. “If we
explore its length and breadth, perhaps we shall find some trace of our
game.”
“Perhaps, if we set to work in earnest, we shall be more successful
hunting for man than we have been for beast,” the young man who used to
be called the Sage observed.
With that the hunters struck out boldly.
“Boys,” said Charles, (they still used the familiar appellation of former
years,) “did any of you ever read a romance in which a scout figured as
the hero, or in which the hero sometimes played the part of a scout, or
spy?”
“I have,” said two or three.
“Well, how did they go about it?” Charles asked.
“Oh,” said Stephen, who took it upon himself to answer, “they always wore
leather breeches, moccasins, and shot-belts; they always struck the trail
at once, smoked the chiefs’ peace-pipe, and slew the common Indians; they
always followed their trade _alone_,--or if they had a mate, _both_ went
alone,--and chewed home-made tobacco with the few tusks still left them;
they always tomahawked deserters, other people’s spies, or scouts, and
wild-cats; and finally, they always found out secrets that got them into
trouble, but lived to receive a gold snuff-box on the occasion of the
hero’s wedding. What they did with the gold snuff-box I don’t know; for
there the romancer, being too much exhausted to write ‘The End,’ which
has six letters, always wrote ‘Finis,’ which has only five.”
“Thank you, Steve,” said Charles. “But according to that, it is hopeless
for us to act the orthodox spy, so we shall have to go on blindly and
take our chances.”
And they did go on blindly--so blindly, that five hours later, when
hunger began to show her hand, they perceived that they were lost! Lost
in a vast forest, which, for all they knew, was infested with robbers!
“It is strange that we have not travelled in a circle,” George mused.
“You all know, of course, that when a man loses his way, it is a
fundamental principle that he should travel in a circle.”
“Well, if we keep on diligently, probably we shall have the pleasure of
finding that we are travelling in a circle,” Charles commented.
“I tell you what it is, boys;” Steve said, making use of an expression
that had left his lips at least once daily since his twelfth year; “I
tell you what it is, boys; now that we are lost, let us make the most of
it. I have had a hankering to get lost ever since I cried myself to sleep
over the mournful tale of the ‘Babes in the Woods;’ and now I am going to
enjoy the novel sensation of being lost! Hurrah!”
And in the exuberance of his spirits careless Steve plucked off his hat
and flung it aloft so adroitly that it caught in a tree and dangled there
tantalizingly, quite out of his reach. However, a ball from Charles’s
rifle induced it to fall.
“That is the most useful thing I have shot, Steve,” he confessed
dejectedly; “and if it had been a thing of life, I should have terminated
that life,” pointing to a ghastly hole in the crown of the hat.
“Don’t be so much moved, Steve,” George observed; “for you may fare worse
than even the ‘Babes in the Woods.’ Poor little creatures, they died
happy, at least.”
“Oh,” said Marmaduke, also delighted to think he was actually lost, “we
can live very well for a few days in this magnificent old forest. We
can, of course, procure all the animal food we shall need, together with
roots, herbs, and berries--no, it’s too late for berries. A man can live
on fish, fruit, and roots, without injury to his system; and in a few
days we shall find our way out, or else be rescued by others.”
“Very good,” said Will; “but where are we to catch the fishes?”
“Oh,” Steve said promptly, “Marmaduke bases his argument on the
supposition that whenever a hunter gets lost, he and a ‘pure stream,’
stocked with fish, presently fall into each other’s arms.”