Black Bruin Part 11

Here was the sc.r.a.p of his life with an animal three times as large as the big Newfoundland, whom he was in the habit of worrying. So he rushed into the thicket and sprang at Black Bruin's throat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROWLER SPRANG AT BLACK BRUIN'S THROAT]

But quick as he was, he was not as quick as his adversary, who ripped open the side of his head with a lucky blow, and stretched him gasping upon the ground. Black Bruin then reached down and biting the kicking dog through the neck, finished his troubles in short order.

Growler uttered one agonized cry, and stretched out dead. This was enough for the rest of the pack, all of whom stuck their tails between their legs and ran for their respective masters.

Hearing the cries of men near at hand, Black Bruin slunk out of the thicket and off into the deep woods, but not soon enough to escape a fusillade of buckshot which whizzed about him as he ran, a few of them biting deep into his flesh.

But he was soon lost to sight, and as the pack would not follow, now that Growler was no more, the hunt was finally abandoned for that day.

The next day a bulldog and a bull terrier were procured to take the place of Growler, and the hunt was resumed. But being made wary by this experience, Black Bruin "laid low" and they could not start him.

Each morning for three days they scoured the country, beating the woods and loosing the hounds at all points where the bear had been recently seen, but without success.

The fourth morning a farmer came to town in great haste. The bear had killed a calf the night before and he had discovered the partly eaten carca.s.s buried in the woods near by. Here was the bait that would lure the thief into their hands.

So hunters and hounds went at once to the carca.s.s, where a rather fresh trail was found. Half an hour's pursuit again routed out the bear.

Once he took to the open, and the young hunter from the city with the Winchester sent a bullet through his paw, laming him considerably.

This would never do, so he doubled back to the woods.

He did not fear this yelping, baying pack as he did the men that were also following him. He now knew that the thunder and lightning that they carried could bite and sting as nothing else could.

For half an hour Black Bruin ran hither and thither, doubling in and out. Finally he remembered his tree-climbing habit and in an evil moment clambered up a tall spruce. In five minutes' time after he scratched up the tree, men and dogs had surrounded his foolish refuge, and his fate seemed sealed.

The last of the party to arrive was the young man with the Winchester, for whom all had been waiting. One shot from him would end the hunt.

They discovered Black Bruin about thirty feet from the ground in a thick whorl of limbs.

The young rifleman was much excited. This would be his first bear.

His name would be in the local paper, and he would have a great story to tell when he got back to the city.

Experience would have taught him to draw his bead finer than he did, and also to have lowered his rear sight, which was set for two hundred yards; but taking careless aim, and thinking he could not miss at such short range, he pressed the trigger.

There was a sharp crack from the rifle, and the bullet ploughed a deep wound in Black Bruin's scalp, but glanced from his thick skull and went singing through the tree-tops.

The blow of the bullet upon the skull dazed the bear for a moment, and he loosed his hold and came tumbling down through the interlaced limbs.

But the hard b.u.mp that he got at the foot of the tree, brought him to his senses with a jerk. Right among the yelping, snarling pack he had fallen, and in sheer desperation he struck out right and left.

Two of the hounds went yelping to the rear. Then an excited boy leveled a double-barreled shotgun at the bear and discharged both barrels.

At the same instant the best hound in the pack jumped into range and rolled over kicking upon the ground. He had received the full charge.

Half-blinded and dazed by the blow upon his head, and made frantic by the yelping of the pack, the shouts of the men and the roar of their thunder, Black Bruin put all his remaining strength into flight.

Not knowing or seeing which way he went, he fled straight toward the hunter with the Winchester with mouth wide open.

Horrified at the sight, which the hunter interpreted as a desperate charge upon the part of the bear, the city Nimrod delivered one wild shot and then fled for his life, as he thought.

This stampeded the entire hunt, and the terrified men fled as fast as their legs could carry them until they left the spot far behind.

It was a question whether the frantic beast tried harder to get away from the hunters, or they from him.

In the village grocery the stories that were told that night made the small boy's hair stand up with fright and his blood run cold with fear.

As for Black Bruin, with his wounded paw upon which he limped painfully, and with his bleeding scalp, he concluded that the part of the country in which he had made his home for several months, was no place for him, so before another sunrise he put many miles between himself and the scene of his narrow escape from the hunters.

Nor did this one night's journey calm his fear. Night after night he fled, always going in the same direction, which, as he fled northward, carried him farther and farther into the wilderness.

At last in a wild country of rugged mountains and deep, thickly wooded valleys, where the habitat of man seemed far distant, he ceased his flight.

There in the wilderness, where lumbermen alone penetrated, Black Bruin denned up and slept away his fifth winter. His bed was made deep under the top of a fallen hemlock, where the snow drifted above him and covered him with soft white blankets. The only evidence that the outer world had that a bear was sleeping beneath was a small hole in the snow kept open by the warm breath of the sleeper.

CHAPTER XI

A PLEASANT COMPANION

When Black Bruin awoke from his long sleep, stretched himself, and sallied forth into the open world, the first faint touch of red was appearing upon the soft maples. Buds upon the other trees had not started and there were yet suggestions of the chill of melting snow-banks upon the air. The tones of the forest were still somber, light gray-green or ash color, suggesting the funeral pile of the last year.

If the sun shone brightly for an hour, there might come a dash of hail the next and a chilling blast of wind that seemed to r.e.t.a.r.d the oncoming spring for a whole month.

Life hung in the balance, the seasons coquetted, gray-haired old Winter trifling and flirting with the warm, blus.h.i.+ng, sweet-breathed Spring.

The awakening had not yet come. It might come the next week, or, if the spring was exceptionally late, it might not come until the next month.

In accordance with his usual spring custom Black Bruin fasted for several days, eating only gra.s.ses, buds and roots. This satisfied him until the thick layers of fat, with which he had come forth from his winter sleep, disappeared and then he became ravenous, "as ravenous as a wolf," as the proverb says.

He hunted mice persistently, but mice seemed not to be as plentiful in the wilderness as they were nearer civilization. Squirrels also were not as numerous here as nearer the abode of man.

Most people, when they go to the great woods, expect to find them teeming with all kinds of life, and are much disappointed to find that song-birds and squirrels are decidedly more plentiful in their home village than in the wilderness. Many of the birds and smaller animals are social little creatures and love to be near the abode of man, while others live upon the scatterings which agriculture deigns not to pick up.

One day Black Bruin was following along the banks of a good-sized stream, looking for frogs, or anything, for that matter, which might fit into a bear menu, when to his great astonishment he discovered another bear, not as large as himself, sitting upon a flat rock a few feet from the sh.o.r.e, watching the stream intently. Black Bruin had never seen any of his kind before and a feeling of curiosity and friendly inquiry came over him. He did not go at once to make the acquaintance of the stranger, but kept very quiet and watched to see what she was doing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE DISCOVERED ANOTHER BEAR WATCHING THE STREAM]

He did not have long to wait, for a gust of wind soon dropped a bit of bark upon the stream near the crouching bear. There was a spray of water, and a flash of the silver sides of the salmon as it darted to the surface. Then the bear on the rock reached down with her paw and, with a lightning-like motion, batted the fish out of the water and well up on the bank.

Black Bruin, during his year of wild life, had found several dead fish, which he had eaten with great relish. So, without waiting to consider that the prize did not belong to him, he started out of the bushes for it.

But the real fisherman rushed at him with such ferocity that he quickly retreated to cover and sat watching while she killed the fish.

When it had been dispatched, the lucky fisherman took it in her mouth and went away into the woods with the prize. Black Bruin followed at a distance, smelling of the bushes, where the fish brushed in pa.s.sing, leaving a tantalizing scent.

Finally, the bear with the fish stopped under some spruces and began eating it.