BORIS THE BEAR-HUNTER
[Illustration: "_The huge brute was in full pursuit of his young wife._"
Page 248. ]
BORIS THE
BEAR-HUNTER
[Illustration]
_T. NELSON & SONS_
BORIS THE BEAR-HUNTER
BY FRED
WHISHAW
LONDON, EDINBURGH,
AND NEW YORK
THOMAS NELSON
AND SONS
_CONTENTS_
_I. The Hunter Hunted_ 9
_II. Boris Finds a New Friend_ 17
_III. Boris Changes Masters_ 25
_IV. Boris Goes A-sailing_ 34
_V. How Peter the Great was knocked over_ 46
_VI. A Taste of the Knout_ 56
_VII. A Race for Life_ 70
_VIII. Boris and his Fellow-Officers_ 84
_IX. One Sword against Five_ 96
_X. A Night Ambush_ 108
_XI. A Battle against Odds_ 120
_XII. A Perilous Slide_ 132
_XIII. Boris Goes on the War-path_ 144
_XIV. Taken Prisoner_ 155
_XV. An Exciting Escape_ 167
_XVI. Home Again_ 181
_XVII. Off to England_ 193
_XVIII. How Boris threw a Big Dutchman Overboard_ 204
_XIX. Bad News from Moscow_ 215
_XX. Boris in Disgrace_ 228
_XXI. Nancy and the Big Bear_ 243
_XXII. A Wolf Maiden_ 253
_XXIII. A Notable Day among the Wolves_ 266
_XXIV. With the Tsar Again_ 278
_XXV. Boris has a Narrow Escape_ 290
_XXVI. How Boris Outwitted the Swedish Admiral_ 303
_XXVII. Small Beginnings of a Great City_ 315
_XXVIII. How the Swedes Erected a Gibbet for Boris_ 326
_XXIX. Mazeppa_ 340
_XXX. Russia's Great Day_ 353
_XXXI. Peace at Last_ 366
_LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS_
"_The huge brute was in full pursuit of his young wife_"
_Frontispiece._
"_That moment saved the Tsar's life_" 54
"_Slashing at the wolves which swarmed about him_" 81
"_In an instant the two were upon him_" 124
"_Out sprang Boris, and alighted with terrific force
upon Menshikoff's back_" 186
"_Boris lifted his kicking legs and slid them over the
bulwark_" 210
"_Bringing up his clenched fists together against the
fellow's chin_" 337
BORIS THE BEAR-HUNTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE HUNTER HUNTED.
The moment at which I propose to introduce my readers to Boris the
Bear-Hunter came very near, as it happened, to being the last which my
hero was destined to spend upon this earth. Great hunter as Boris was,
there is no doubt about it that on this particular occasion he met his
match, and came within measurable distance of defeat at the hands--or
rather paws--of one of the very creatures whose overthrow was at once
his profession and his glory.
It happened many a year ago--about two hundred, in fact; and the scene
of Boris's adventure was an exceedingly remote one, far away in the
north of Europe, close to Archangel.
Boris Ivanitch was a peasant whose home was an outlying village near
the large town just mentioned. He was a serf, of course, as were all
his fellows at that time; but in consequence of his wonderful strength
and courage, and of his aptitude for pursuing and killing every kind
of wild beast and game, he was exempt, by favour of his lord, both
from taxation and from the manual labour which the owner of the soil
could have exacted from him. In a word, Boris was employed to keep the
country clear, or as clear as possible, of bears and wolves, which,
when left to themselves, were at that time the cause of much danger and
loss to the inhabitants of that portion of the Russian empire.
Boris performed his duties well. There was no man, young or old, for
hundreds of miles around who could compare with this young giant
in any of those sports or competitions in which the palm went to
the strongest. Tall and muscular beyond his years--for he was but
nineteen at this time--lithe as a willow, straight as a poplar,
Boris excelled in anything which called into play the qualities of
activity and strength. Had he lived in our day and attended an English
public school, he would undoubtedly have come to the front, whether
on the cricket or the football field, on the running path or on the
river. But being debarred from the privileges of English schoolboys,
Boris was obliged to expend his energies in those exercises which
were open to him, and which alone were familiar to the people of his
country--snow-shoeing, hunting, swimming, and similar sports natural to
the livers of a wild, outdoor life in a scarcely civilized land.
It was early summer-time, and the woods, or rather forests, about
Archangel were in their fullest heyday of life and beauty. Hundreds of
square miles of pine trees were the principal feature of the landscape,
dotted here and there by a patch of cultivated land, or watched over by
a tumble-down village nestling beneath the shadow of the forest. Oats
and wheat, now fast ripening, waved in the soft air of June, and told
of peace and plenty for those who took the trouble to till the generous
soil for a living. The prospects of the crops around Dubinka, Boris's
village, appeared at first sight to be promising enough--the rye was
tall and nearly ripe, and the oats were doing capitally; but had you
asked the peasants, the owners of the crops, they would have told you,
with the lamentations common to the Russian peasant, that God had
certainly been very good to them and sent them a fine harvest, but that
the devil had spoiled all the good work by sending two large bears to
eat up and trample down the fruits of the field, and to ruin the poor
peasants. Ivan's field was half eaten up already, they would have said,
and Andrey's would go next. And Boris couldn't find the bears, or he
would soon give them "something in their stomachs better for them than
the peasants' oats;" but there was no snow, and Boris could not track
them without it, though he had been after the brutes for a fortnight
and more.
This was all true enough--indeed, Boris was "after them" at the present
moment, though to look at him you would scarcely have thought it; for
the hunter was busily engaged strolling lazily through the forest,
picking and enjoying the beautiful wild strawberries which covered the
ground in profusion. He had propped his bear-spear against a tree, and
was at the moment some distance from the weapon--tempted away from it
against his usual habit by the peculiar lusciousness of the fruit,
which was warm from the sun, and very delicious.
Even strawberry eating palls at length upon the satiated palate, and
Boris began to think that he had had enough. He would now resume, he
thought, his search for those marauding bears who had broken into the
village corn-fields and destroyed the peace of the poor peasants. So
he picked one more handful of the strawberries, crammed them into his
mouth, sighed, glanced regretfully at the delicious fruit at his feet,
and finally raised his head to look for his bear-spear. As he did so,
he became aware of a huge form standing close at hand, some ten yards
away, showing its teeth, and quietly watching his movements. It was a
bear!
Boris's first feeling was one of great joy at meeting his enemy at
last; his second was one of dismay as he realized the want of his
trusty spear.
It must not for a moment be supposed that Boris was alarmed by the
situation. If any one had told him that he was in a situation of peril,
he would have laughed aloud at the very idea of such a thing. His
regret was caused solely by the fear that, being unarmed, he might lose
the opportunity of doing business with that bear upon this particular
occasion, and would probably have to find him again before settling
accounts.
Hoping to catch sight of his spear, and to reach it before the bear
could make off, Boris backed slowly towards the place where he thought
he had left the weapon. Bruin did not, as he had expected, give a loud
roar to show his enemy that he was an awful fellow if he liked, and
then straightway turn and run. On the contrary, the brute advanced
towards the hunter, growling and showing certain very large and
business-like teeth. Then Boris felt that it would be well to find that
spear of his as quickly as possible, for he had no other weapon about
him, and the bear appeared to be very much in earnest. So the hunter
turned and ran, with the bear at his heels.
At first Boris rather enjoyed the chase. It would be an amusing story
to tell at the village when he arrived there with the bear's skin. How
the peasants would all laugh, and how they would sing and make merry
in the evening over the downfall of their enemy! Boris could afford to
tell a good story about himself and a bear, even though the laugh had
been on the bear's side to begin with, if he produced the skin of the
bear at the same time.
Yes, _if_. But the growling of the brute sounded rather close at his
ear, and Boris was forced to dodge in and out between the tree trunks
in order to avoid capture.
As the moments passed, and he grew more and more out of breath, Boris
longed eagerly for the welcome sight of his bear-spear. Once or twice
the bear had so nearly collared him that he bethought him that he must
devise some plan by which to gain a little breath. A roar and a rush
from behind at this moment, together with the loss of a considerable
portion of the tail of his shirt, which, being worn outside the
trousers, Russian fashion, had fluttered in the breeze, made it plain
that there was no time to be lost. He must take to a tree and gain
time. So Boris pulled himself together, put on a mighty spurt, and was
five feet up the stem of a pine tree just as Bruin reached the foot of
it, and rose on his hind legs to follow him aloft.
Up went Boris and up went Bruin, both fine climbers, and both
scrambling and puffing as though their very lives depended upon their
agility, as indeed was the case so far as concerned one at least of
them. Quick as he was, Boris was nearly caught. He had barely time to
climb along a branch and let himself fall to the earth, when the bear
was already upon the same bough and looking down after him, meditating
as to whether he too should drop to the ground or adopt the slower and
safer course of climbing down again by the trunk, as he had come up.
Luckily for Boris the discretion of that bear prevailed over his desire
to save time, and he decided upon the slower method of descent. This
decision gave Boris a moment or two of breathing time, which he sadly
required.
He sat down to rest, and looked around frantically in every direction
in hopes of catching sight of his spear. That action nearly cost him
his life. The bear, impatient as bears are when irritated, could not
tolerate the slow process of descending which it had chosen, and when
half-way down the stem of the pine had dropped the rest of the way in
order to gain time. Boris was barely able to rise and slip away when
the heavy brute dropped upon the very spot where he had been sitting.
Away went Boris, slightly refreshed, and with his "second wind" coming
on, and after him flew Bruin, furious and determined. Again Boris
dodged and ran, and ran and dodged, and again he felt the hot breath
and heard the loud pants and growls at his ear; again his breath began
to fail him, and his heart as well, when, just as he was nearly spent,
his eye fell upon that which was to him at that moment the fairest
sight that ever his eye beheld--his beloved spear leaning against a
tree-trunk one hundred yards away.