The light of the tiny fire Great Bear had kindled awakened Little Bear
the next morning. Grandfather had meat cooked for their meal. As soon as
they had finished eating, Great Bear cooked all of the meat that was
left.
“When we get near the Crow, we won’t dare start a fire,” he explained.
They lost little time getting started. Great Bear packed the cooked meat
in one bundle and tied it on his horse. The buffalo hide was added to
Little Bear’s pack. They pushed their horses as fast as they dared.
Little Bear watched the trail left by the Crow. He was disappointed to
see it was getting no fresher. Their enemy was traveling as fast as they
were.
Their rest at noon was brief. When they started on again, Little Bear
noticed Grandfather was constantly looking towards the northwest. As the
afternoon wore on, the old warrior showed more and more anxiety. Little
Bear noticed a bank of rain clouds in the northwest, but it was odd for
Great Bear to worry about so small a thing as a soaking by a rainstorm.
“Why do the clouds trouble you, Grandfather?” Little Bear asked.
“I have the feeling of bad weather,” Great Bear replied. “These canyons
are dangerous places when Old-Man-of-the-Sky dumps much water.”
[Illustration]
They had left the wide flat valleys and were riding through narrow
canyons with steep sides. There were many openings leading into these
canyons. Little Bear wondered if Grandfather could find his way if there
were no trail to follow. Probably he could. He seemed to know where they
were. Little Bear had been thinking how easy it would be for the Crow to
hide his horse in one of the canyons leading from the one they were in.
He could wait for them and easily ambush them. He hadn’t thought at all
of the danger of a heavy rain sending water roaring down the narrow
canyon. Now that Grandfather had mentioned his fears, Little Bear
remembered tales of warriors who had been caught in sudden floods and
drowned.
He heard the faint roll of distant thunder. Soon the sound came nearer
and became an almost continuous rumble. Little Bear saw a fork of
lightning streak across the clouds.
“We must get to higher ground,” Great Bear warned. “Watch for a way out
of this canyon.”
They urged their horses to a faster pace. The sound of thunder was no
longer a distant rumble, but had become a crashing roar.
Old-Man-of-the-Sky was throwing his lightning bolts all around them.
Great Bear halted at a place where it seemed it might be possible for
the horses to climb the canyon wall. He jumped from his horse and
grabbed the halter rope. It was a steep slope and the ground was loose,
giving the horse poor footing. With Great Bear pulling at the rope, the
horse slowly struggled up the bank. Little Bear waited until Great Bear
had his horse halfway up before he started to follow. Both horses
slipped and struggled, but slowly fought their way ahead.
At last they came to a wide shelf on the side of the hill. It didn’t
appear to be a very safe place. Little Bear wondered how much rain it
would take to loosen the ledge from the side of the cliff and send it
crashing to the bottom of the canyon. They had no choice except to stay.
The walls of the canyon above them were so steep that they couldn’t go
any higher.
The rain started with a few scattered drops which soon became a pounding
downpour. Both Little Bear and Grandfather grabbed their buffalo robes
and pulled them around their shoulders as they crouched against the side
of the cliff. Little Bear could hear the thunderbolts, which
Old-Man-of-the-Sky was throwing at the earth, crashing and bouncing
back. There was the mounting roar of the wind around them.
The horses had moved about the ledge, looking for grass. As the wind
rose, they, too, crowded against the cliff for shelter. Little Bear
thought he could hear another roar mounting above the roar of the wind.
Great Bear crouched forward in order to hear better.
“It is a wall of water going down the canyon,” Great Bear guessed,
shouting to make his voice heard.
“Will it be this high?” Little Bear tried to keep the fear out of his
voice.
“We can only wait and see,” Grandfather answered.
The storm had shut out the light so quickly that it was almost dark.
Little Bear crouched despairingly against the cliff. He felt above his
head in the hope he could find rough places which could be used as steps
out of the canyon. The wall was smooth and water running down it made it
slippery. If the water in the canyon rose to their shelf, there was no
way of escape.
He couldn’t talk to Great Bear. The thundering, crashing roar of water
was so loud he couldn’t have made himself heard if he had leaned close
to Great Bear’s ear and shouted. The rain began to slacken, but the roar
of water in the canyon grew louder. Little Bear knew that even if the
rain stopped at once, the water in the canyon might still rise to their
shelf.
He waited for what seemed hours. The rain decreased until there was only
a light drizzle falling. Little Bear’s muscles ached from sitting in his
cramped position. At last he could stand it no longer. Slowly he got to
his feet. Sharp pains ran up and down his arms and legs, but as he
continued to move around, the pains soon left. Was the deafening roar of
water in the canyon decreasing? He waited, listening. He saw Great Bear
raise his head in a listening attitude. Slowly Grandfather got to his
feet.
“The water is going down,” Great Bear shouted.
It was true. Only a few minutes earlier he couldn’t have heard
Grandfather shout. The roar of rushing water lessened rapidly. In a
short time the sound was no more than what a small river would have
made.
Not until his fear of rising water had completely disappeared did Little
Bear realize how uncomfortable he was. He was wet through and thoroughly
chilled. He had to clamp his jaws tight to keep his teeth from
chattering.
As the downpour of rain had lessened into a drizzle, it had grown
lighter, but it was only the light of evening. Soon it would be
pitch-dark again.
“We must find fuel and build a fire,” Great Bear warned.
There were no trees on the small shelf. Finding wood appeared to be a
hopeless task. Darkness fell rapidly, adding to their difficulties.
Little Bear searched to the right and Grandfather to the left. Little
Bear found a small clump of brush and a few dead branches. He got down
on his hands and knees and groped around, but could find no more. He
carried the few he had found back to the cliff. Great Bear had been more
fortunate. He had brought back a large, dead limb.
“There must be more wood where I found this branch,” Great Bear said.
“It must have blown from a tree at the top of the cliff. When we get a
fire started, we may be able to find more.”
They had a hard time starting a fire. The branch Great Bear had found
seemed to be soaked almost entirely through. Great Bear took his knife
and peeled away the outer part of the limb. When he had whittled to a
part of the limb that was almost dry, he had Little Bear hold his robe
to shield the shavings from the rain. Grandfather whittled off a
good-sized pile of shavings and then cut a few thicker pieces of wood.
When he thought he had enough shavings to start a fire, Great Bear laid
aside his knife and picked up flint and steel. He struck them together.
A spark fell on the pile of shavings and immediately went out. Great
Bear moved the shavings about, trying to get drier ones to the top of
the pile. He struck another spark, but again it died without lighting
the shavings.
“These shavings aren’t dry enough,” Great Bear declared. “I’ll have to
get drier shavings.”
He took up his knife and cut into the branch in another place. Little
Bear’s arms were aching from holding the heavy buffalo robe. Great Bear
whittled carefully until he had another pile of shavings ready. He
struck flint to steel. A spark dropped on the shavings and went out. He
struck again. Another spark fell, smouldered a moment, and blazed up in
a tiny flame. Great Bear slowly added shavings and, as the flame leaped
up, put thicker pieces on the fire.
“You won’t need to hold the robe over it now,” he told Little Bear.
Thankfully Little Bear laid the buffalo robe on the ground. He would
have liked to sit down and rest, but they needed more fuel. As Great
Bear slowly built up the fire, Little Bear started out to find more
wood. The tiny fire gave little light. Yet when Little Bear was some
distance from the fire and turned to face it, he could see better. He
found two more small limbs.
As soon as Great Bear had the fire burning well enough so that he dared
leave it, both of them went back and searched. In the darkness they had
to move carefully for fear they would slip over the edge of the cliff.
Although they searched carefully, they found only two small handfuls of
wood. By the time they returned to the fire, the rain had stopped.
“We’ll dry our robes first,” Great Bear decided.
He set up some of the larger sticks to make a framework near the fire.
They laid the robes over the framework. When the robes were dry, they
removed their clothes, wrapped themselves in the robes, and hung their
clothes on the framework to dry.
It was not until he was comfortably warm that Little Bear realized how
hungry he was. He found the package of meat they had brought with them.
While they were eating, Little Bear noticed how their tiny fire made a
flickering light on the canyon wall.
“Won’t our enemies be able to see this fire a great distance?” he asked
anxiously.
“No,” Great Bear assured him. “There are hills high above us in every
direction. Besides, anyone caught in this rain would be as busy trying
to get dry as we are.”
It was then that a terrible thought struck Little Bear. “The rain washed
away the Crow’s trail,” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” Grandfather agreed sadly. “Now we won’t be able to track him. We
may as well start for the winter camp in the morning.”
“We can’t give up,” Little Bear protested, thinking of that roan colt he
hoped to own when he returned Flying Arrow’s other horses. “We must be
near the Crow.”
“Very likely we are near him,” Great Bear agreed, “but this land is made
up of many small canyons like the ones we came through. How are we to
find the Crow?”
“You said we are near the place of water-that-falls,” Little Bear said
thoughtfully. “Let’s go there before we give up. Perhaps
Spirit-of-Water-That-Falls will guide us to our enemy.”
“All of the spirits seem to work for our enemy,” Great Bear pointed out.
“Yet it might be a gift would win the help of
Spirit-of-Water-That-Falls. But what do we have to offer as a gift?”
“We could make him a present of the buffalo hide,” Little Bear
suggested. “He should like a present of the hide of my first buffalo.”
“That would be a fine present indeed.” Great Bear smiled. “We shall take
it to him tomorrow.”
Little Bear wrapped himself in his robe and fell into a fitful sleep. He
dreamed that he was climbing up and down steep canyon walls while a
splendid roan horse was leaping across the canyons. The horse seemed
never to run off and leave him, but always stayed just the width of one
canyon ahead of him.