It must not be supposed that the life of a backwoodsman is all pleasure and excitement. Not wishing to disappoint our readers with it, we have hitherto presented chiefly its bright phases, but truth requires that we should now portray some of the darker aspects of that life. For instance, it was a very sombre aspect indeed of prairie-life when Victor Ravenshaw and his party crossed a stony place where Victor’s horse tripped and rolled over, causing the rider to execute a somersault which laid him flat upon the plain, compelling the party to encamp there for three days until he was sufficiently recovered to resume the journey. Perhaps we should say the chase, for, although the trail had been lost, hope was strong, and the pursuers continued to advance steadily in what they believed to be the right direction.
The aspect of things became still more dreary when the fine weather, which was almost uninterrupted as summer advanced, gave way to a period of wind and rain. Still, they pushed on hopefully. Michel Rollin alone was despondent.
“It is a wild goose chase now,” he remarked sulkily one day, while the wet fuel refused to kindle.
That same night Victor half awoke and growled. He seldom awoke of his own accord. Nature had so arranged it that parents, or comrades, usually found it necessary to arouse him with much shouting and shaking—not unfrequently with kicks. But there was a more powerful influence than parents, comrades, or kicks at work that night. Being tired and sleepy, the party had carelessly made their beds in a hollow. It was fair when they lay down. Soon afterwards, a small but exceedingly heavy rain descended like dew upon their unprotected heads. It soaked their blankets and passed through. It soaked their garments and passed through. It reached their skins, which it could not so easily pass through, but was stopped and warmed before being absorbed. A few uneasy turns and movements, with an occasional growl, was the result—nothing more. But when the density of the rain increased, and the crevices in the soil turned into active water-courses, and their hollow became a pool, Victor became, as we have said, half-awake. Presently he awoke completely, sat up, and scratched his head. It was the power of a soft and gentle but persistent influence triumphantly asserted.
“W’ass-’e-marrer?” asked Ian, without moving.
“Why,” (yawning), “Lake Winnipeg is a trifle to this,” said Victor.
“O-gor-o-sleep,” returned Ian.
“Niagara have com to de plains!” exclaimed Rollin, rising to a sitting posture in desperation. “It have been rush ’longside of me spine for two hours by de cloke. Oui.”
This aroused Ian, who also sat up disconsolate and yawned.
“It’s uncomfortable,” he remarked.
No one replied to so ridiculously obvious a truth, but each man slowly rose and stumbled towards higher ground. To add to their discomfort the night was intensely dark; even if wide awake they could not have seen a yard in front of them.
“Have you found a tree?” asked Victor.
“Oui—yes—to be sure,” said Rollin angrily. “Anyhow von branch of a tree have found me, an’ a’most split my head.”
“Where is it?—speak, Ian; I can see nothing. Is it—ah! I’ve found it too.”
“Vid yoos head?” inquired Rollin, chuckling.
Victor condescended not to reply, but lay down under the partial shelter of the tree, rolled himself up in his wet blanket, and went to sleep. His companions followed suit. Yes, reader, we can vouch for the truth of this, having more than once slept damp and soundly in a wet blanket. But they did not like it, and their spirits were down about zero when they mounted at grey dawn and resumed the chase in a dull, dreadful drizzle.
After a time the aspect of the scenery changed. The rolling plain became more irregular and broken than heretofore, and was more studded with patches of woodland, which here and there almost assumed the dignity of forests.
One evening the clouds broke; glimpses of the heavenly blue appeared to gladden our travellers, and ere long the sun beamed forth in all its wonted splendour. Riding out into a wide stretch of open country, they bounded away with that exuberance of feeling which is frequently the result of sunshine after rain.
“It is like heaven upon earth,” cried Victor, pulling up after a long run.
“I wonder what heaven is like,” returned Ian musingly. “It sometimes occurs to me that we think and speak far too little of heaven, which is a strange thing, considering that we all hope to go there in the long-run, and expect to live there for ever.”
“Oh! come now, Mr Wiseman,” said Victor, “I didn’t mean to call forth a sermon.”
“Your remark, Vic, only brings out one of the curious features of the case. If I had spoken of buffalo-hunting, or riding, or boating, or even of the redskin’s happy hunting-grounds—anything under the sun or above it—all would have been well and in order, but directly I refer to our own heaven I am sermonising!”
“Well, because it’s so like the parsons,” pleaded Victor.
“What then? Were not the parsons, as you style them, sent to raise our thoughts to God and heaven by preaching Christ? I admit that some of them don’t raise our thoughts high, and a few of them help rather to drag our thoughts downward. Still, as a class, they are God’s servants; and for myself I feel that I don’t consider sufficiently what they have to tell us. I don’t wish to sermonise; I merely wish to ventilate my own thoughts and get light if I can. You are willing to chat with me, Vic, on all other subjects; why not on this?”
“Oh! I’ve no objection, Ian; none whatever, only it’s—it’s—I say, there seems to me to be some sort of brute moving down in the woods there. Hist! let’s keep round by that rocky knoll, and I’ll run up to see what it is.”
Victor did not mean this as a violent change of subject, although he was not sorry to make the change. His attention had really been attracted by some animal which he said and hoped was a bear. They soon galloped to the foot of the knoll, which was very rugged—covered with rocks and bushes. Victor ascended on foot, while his comrades remained at the bottom holding his horse.
The sight that met his eyes thrilled him. In the distance, on a wooded eminence, sat a huge grizzly bear. The size of Victor’s eyes when he looked back at his comrades was eloquently suggestive, even if he had not drawn back and descended the slope toward them on tiptoe and with preternatural caution.
“A monstrous grizzly!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper—though the bear was at beast half a mile off on the other side of the knoll.
The eyes of Ian surpassed those of Victor in the matter of dilation.
“Did he see you?”
“No; he was nibbling his paws when I gave him my last look.”
“Now, comrades,” said Ian, whose usually calm demeanour had given place to intense, yet suppressed excitement, “it may seem selfish—though I hope it is not—when I ask you to leave that bear entirely to me. You know, Vic, that your sister Elsie once expressed a wish for a grizzly-bear collar, and at the time I inwardly resolved to get her one, of my own procuring, if I could. It is a whim, you know, but, in the circumstances, I do hope that—that—”
“Ah! it is for une dame—une affair of de heart. Bon! You shall go in an’ vin,” said the gallant Rollin.
“I don’t know,” said Victor dubiously; “it seems to me rather hard to give up my chance of the first grizzly I’ve ever seen. However, I’m willing to do so on one condition—that Rollin and I go as near you as may be without interfering. You know—excuse me, Ian—what an awful bad shot you are. If you were to miss, you know—which you’re sure to do—and we were not there—eh?”
“All right, you shall go with me; but have a care, no helping of me except in case of dire necessity.”
This being agreed to, they made a wide circuit to reach a hollow. In its shelter they galloped swiftly towards the woodland, near the margin of which the bear had been seen. Arrived at a point which they judged to be near the animal, they dismounted, fastened up their horses, and prepared for war.
There were no encumbrances to lay aside, for they travelled in the simplest possible costume, but Ian drew the charge of his gun, wiped the piece carefully out with a bit of rag, made sure that the touch-hole was clear, fixed in a new flint, and loaded carefully with ball. The others acted similarly.
“Empty de pan an’ prime again ven you gits near,” said Rollin.
Ian made some uncalled-for reference to eggs and the education of Rollin’s grandmother, tightened his belt, felt that the hatchet and scalping-knife were handy behind him, and set off on his adventure, followed by his companions at a considerable distance.
On drawing near to the outer edge of the woods he stooped slightly, and trod with the extreme caution of an Indian. Indeed, no red man could have beaten Ian at woodcraft—except, of course, in the matter of shooting. He felt this defect keenly as he glided along, but never faltered for an instant. Elsie smiled at him as visibly as if she had been there. His mind was made up.
At the edge of the wood he saw the rough spot where the bear had been seen, but no bear was visible. He felt a sinking of the heart. “It must have heard me and run away,” he thought, and hurried forward. The actual spot where it had been seen was reached, but Bruin was not there. Disappointment rendered Ian somewhat impatient. He entered the bushes beyond the knoll hastily. The bear had only changed its position, and was wagging its head and nibbling its paws on the other side of these bushes. It heard a footstep, ceased to nibble and wag, and looked up inquiringly. Suddenly Macdonald burst through the bushes and stood before him.
It is an open question whether the man or the beast was the more surprised, for the former had given up all hope by that time. But the bear was first to recover self-possession, and advanced to meet the intruder.
It is well known that the king of the western wilds is endowed with more than average ferocity and courage. He may perhaps let you alone if you let him alone, but if you take him by surprise he is not prone to flee. The bear in question was a magnificent specimen, with claws like the fingers of a man. Even in that moment of extreme peril Ian saw these claws strung together and encircling Elsie’s neck.
We say that the peril was extreme, for not only was the hunter a bad shot, but the hunted was a creature whose tenacity of life is so great that one shot, even if well placed, is not sufficient to kill it outright.
No one knew all this better than Ian Macdonald, but Elsie smiled approval, and Ian, being a matter-of-fact, unromantic fellow, clenched his teeth with a snap and went down on one knee. The bear quickened his pace and came straight at him. Ian raised his gun. Then there came a gush of feeling of some sort at his heart. What if he should miss? What if the gun should miss fire? Certain death! he well knew that. He took deadly aim when the monster was within a few yards of him and fired at the centre of its chest. The ball took effect on the extreme point of its nose, coursed under the skin over its forehead, and went out at the back of its head.
Never before was a shot taken with a more demonstrative expression of rage. To say that the bear roared would be feeble. A compounded steam-whistle and bassoon might give a suggestive illustration. The pain must have been acute, for the creature fell on its knees, drove its nose into the ground, and produced a miniature earthquake with a snort. Then it sprang up and rushed at its foe. Ian was reloading swiftly for his life. Vain hope. Men used to breech-loaders can scarce understand the slow operations of muzzle-loaders. He had only got the powder in, and was plucking a bullet from his pouch. Another moment and he would have been down, when crack! crack! went shots on either side of him, and the bear fell with a ball from Victor in its heart and another from Rollin in its spine.
Even thus fatally wounded it strove to reach its conquerors, and continued to show signs of ungovernable fury until its huge life went out.
Poor Ian stood resting on his gun, and looking at it, the picture of despair.
“You hit him after all,” said Victor, with a look of admiration at his friend, not on account of the shooting, but of his dauntless courage. “And of course,” he continued, “the grizzly is yours, because you drew first blood.”
Ian did not reply at once, but shook his head gravely.
“If you and Rollin had not been here,” he said, “I should have been dead by this time. No, Vic, no. Do you think I would present Elsie with a collar thus procured? The bear belongs to you and Rollin, for it seems to me that both shots have been equally fatal. You shall divide the claws between you, I will have none of them.”
There was bitterness in poor Ian’s spirit, for grizzly bears were not to be fallen in with every day, and it might be that he would never have another opportunity. Even if he had, what could he do?
“I don’t believe I could hit a house if it were running,” he remarked that night at supper. “My only chance will be to wait till the bear is upon me, shove my gun into his mouth, and pull the trigger when the muzzle is well down his throat.”
“That would be throttling a bear indeed,” said Victor, with a laugh, as he threw a fresh log on the fire. “What say you, Rollin?”
“It vould bu’st de gun,” replied the half-breed, whose mind, just then, was steeped in tobacco smoke. “Bot,” he continued, “it vould be worth vile to try. Possiblement de bu’stin’ of de gun in his troat might do ver vell. It vould give him con—con—vat you call him? De ting vat leetil chile have?”
“Contrariness,” said Victor.
“Contradictiousness,” suggested Ian; “they’re both good long words, after your own heart.”
“Non, non! Con—convulsions, dat is it. Anyhow it vould injure his digestiveness.”
“Ha! ha! yes, so it would,” cried Victor, tossing off a can of cold water like a very toper. “Well, boys, I’m off to sleep, my digestiveness being uninjured as yet. Good-night.”
“What! without a pipe, Vic?”
“Come, now, don’t chaff. To tell you the truth, Ian, I’ve been acting your part lately. I’ve been preaching a sermon to myself, the text of which was given to me by Herr Winklemann the night before we left the buffalo-runners, and I’ve been considerably impressed by my own preaching. Anyhow, I mean to take my own advice—good-night, again.”
Ian returned “good-night” with a smile, and, lying down beside him, gazed long and thoughtfully through the trees overhead at the twinkling, tranquil stars. Michel Rollin continued to smoke and meditate for another hour. Then he shook the ashes out of his pipe, heaped fresh logs on the declining fire, and followed his comrades to the land of Nod.
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