In the edge of the balsam and spruce Langdon and Otto sat smoking their
pipes after supper, with the glowing embers of a fire at their feet. The
night air in these higher altitudes of the mountains had grown chilly, and
Bruce rose long enough to throw a fresh armful of dry spruce on the coals.
Then he stretched out his long form again, with his head and shoulders
bolstered comfortably against the butt of a tree, and for the fiftieth time
he chuckled.
"Chuckle an' be blasted," growled Langdon. "I tell you I hit him twice,
Bruce--twice anyway; and I was at a devilish disadvantage!"
"'Specially when 'e was lookin' down an' grinnin' in your face," retorted
Bruce, who had enjoyed hugely his comrade's ill luck. "Jimmy, at that
distance you should a'most ha' killed 'im with a rock!"
"My gun was under me," explained Langdon for the twentieth time.
"W'ich ain't just the proper place for a gun to be when yo'r hunting a
grizzly," reminded Bruce.
"The gully was confoundedly steep. I had to dig in with both feet and my
fingers. If it had been any steeper I would have used my teeth."
Langdon sat up, knocked the ash out of the bowl of his pipe, and reloaded
it with fresh tobacco.
"Bruce, that's the biggest grizzly in the Rocky Mountains!"
"He'd 'a' made a fine rug in your den, Jimmy--if yo'r gun hadn't 'appened
to 'ave been under you."
"And I'm going to have him in my den before I finish," declared Langdon.
"I've made up my mind. We'll make a permanent camp here. I'm going to get
that grizzly if it takes all summer. I'd rather have him than any other ten
bears in the Firepan Range. He was a nine-footer if an inch. His head was
as big as a bushel basket, and the hair on his shoulders was four inches
long. I don't know that I'm sorry I didn't kill him. He's hit, and he'll
surely fight say. There'll be a lot of fun in getting him."
"There will that," agreed Bruce, "'specially if you meet 'im again during
the next week or so, while he's still sore from the bullets. Better not
have the gun under you then, Jimmy!"
"What do you say to making this a permanent camp?"
"Couldn't be better. Plenty of fresh meat, good grazing, and fine water."
After a moment he added: "He was hit pretty hard. He was bleedin' bad at
the summit."
In the firelight Langdon began cleaning his rifle.
"You think he may clear out--leave the country?"
Bruce emitted a grunt of disgust.
"Clear out? _Run away_? Mebbe he would if he was a black. But he's a
grizzly, and the boss of this country. He may fight shy of this valley for
a while, but you can bet he ain't goin' to emigrate. The harder you hit a
grizzly the madder he gets, an' if you keep on hittin' 'im he keeps on
gettin' madder, until he drops dead. If you want that bear bad enough we
can surely get him."
"I do," Langdon reiterated with emphasis. "He'll smash record measurements
or I miss my guess. I want him, and I want him bad, Bruce. Do you think
we'll be able to trail him in the morning?"
Bruce shook his head.
"It won't be a matter of trailing," he said. "It's just simply _hunt_.
After a grizzly has been hit he keeps movin'. He won't go out of his range,
an' neither is he going to show himself on the open slopes like that up
there. Metoosin ought to be along with the dogs inside of three or four
days, an' when we get that bunch of Airedales in action, there'll be some
fun."
Langdon sighted at the fire through the polished barrel of his rifle, and
said doubtfully:
"I've been having my doubts about Metoosin for a week back. We've come
through some mighty rough country."
"That old Indian could follow our trail if we travelled on rock," declared
Bruce confidently. "He'll be here inside o' three days, barring the dogs
don't run their fool heads into too many porcupines. An' when they
come"--he rose and stretched his gaunt frame--"we'll have the biggest time
we ever had in our lives. I'm just guessin' these mount'ins are so full o'
bear that them ten dogs will all be massacreed within a week. Want to bet?"
Langdon closed his rifle with a snap.
"I only want one bear," he said, ignoring the challenge, "and I have an
idea we'll get him to-morrow. You're the bear specialist of the outfit,
Bruce, but I think he was too hard hit to travel far."
They had made two beds of soft balsam boughs near the fire, and Langdon now
followed his companion's example, and began spreading his blankets. It had
been a hard day, and within five minutes after stretching himself out he
was asleep.
He was still asleep when Bruce rolled out from under his blanket at dawn.
Without rousing Langdon the young packer slipped on his boots and waded
back a quarter of a mile through the heavy dew to round up the horses. When
he returned he brought Dishpan and their saddle-horses with him. By that
time Langdon was up, and starting a fire.
Langdon frequently reminded himself that such mornings as this had made him
disappoint the doctors and rob the grave. Just eight years ago this June he
had come into the North for the first time, thin-chested and with a bad
lung. "You can go if you insist, young man," one of the doctors had told
him, "but you're going to your own funeral." And now he had a five-inch
expansion and was as tough as a knot. The first rose-tints of the sun were
creeping over the mountain-tops; the air was filled with the sweetness of
flowers, and dew, and growing things, and his lungs drew in deep breaths of
oxygen laden with the tonic and perfume of balsam.
He was more demonstrative than his companion in the joyousness of this wild
life. It made him want to shout, and sing, and whistle. He restrained
himself this morning. The thrill of the hunt was in his blood.
While Otto saddled the horses Langdon made the bannock. He had become an
expert at what he called "wild-bread" baking, and his method possessed the
double efficiency of saving both waste and time.
He opened one of the heavy canvas flour sacks, made a hollow in the flour
with his two doubled fists, partly filled this hollow with a pint of water
and half a cupful of caribou grease, added a tablespoonful of baking powder
and a three-finger pinch of salt, and began to mix. Inside of five minutes
he had the bannock loaves in the big tin reflector, and half an hour later
the sheep steaks were fried, the potatoes done, and the bannock baked to a
golden brown.
The sun was just showing its face in the east when they trailed out of
camp. They rode across the valley, but walked up the slope, the horses
following obediently in their footsteps.
It was not difficult to pick up Thor's trail. Where he had paused to snarl
back defiance at his enemies there was a big red spatter on the ground;
from this point to the summit they followed a crimson thread of blood.
Three times in descending into the other valley they found where Thor had
stopped, and each time they saw where a pool of blood had soaked into the
earth or run over the rock.
They passed through the timber and came to the creek, and here, in a strip
of firm black sand, Thor's footprints brought them to a pause. Bruce
stared. An exclamation of amazement came from Langdon, and without a word
having passed between them he drew out his pocket-tape and knelt beside one
of the tracks.
"Fifteen and a quarter inches!" he gasped.
"Measure another," said Bruce.
"Fifteen and--a half!"
Bruce looked up the gorge.
"The biggest I ever see was fourteen an' a half," he said, and there was a
touch of awe in his voice. "He was shot up the Athabasca an' he's stood as
the biggest grizzly ever killed in British Columbia. Jimmy, _this one beats
'im_!"
They went on, and measured the tracks again at the edge of the first pool
where Thor had bathed his wounds. There was almost no variation in the
measurements. Only occasionally after this did they find spots of blood. It
was ten o'clock when they came to the clay wallow and saw where Thor had
made his bed in it.
"He was pretty sick," said Bruce in a low voice. "He was here most all
night."
Moved by the same impulse and the same thought, they looked ahead of them.
Half a mile farther on the mountains closed in until the gorge between them
was dark and sunless.
"He was pretty sick," repeated Bruce, still looking ahead. "Mebbe we'd
better tie the horses an' go on alone. It's possible--he's in there."
They tied the horses to scrub cedars, and relieved Dishpan of her pack.
Then, with their rifles in readiness, and eyes and ears alert, they went on
cautiously into the silence and gloom of the gorge.