Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac Read online

  X. THE EDDY

  All the west slopes of Tallac were swept by the fire, and Kellyan moved to a new hut on the east side, where still were green patches; so did the grouse and the rabbit and the coyote, and so did Grizzly Jack. His wound healed quickly, but his memory of the rifle smell continued; it was a dangerous smell, a new and horrible kind of smoke—one he was destined to know too well; one, indeed, he was soon to meet again. Jack was wandering down the side of Tallac, following a sweet odor that called up memories of former joys—the smell of honey, though he did not know it. A flock of grouse got leisurely out of his way and flew to a low tree, when he caught a whiff of man smell, then heard a crack like that which had stung him in the sheep-corral, and down fell one of the grouse close beside him. He stepped forward to sniff just as a man also stepped forward from the opposite bushes. They were within ten feet of each other, and they recognized each other, for the hunter saw that it was a singed Bear with a wounded side, and the Bear smelt the rifle-smoke and the leather clothes. Quick as a Grizzly—that is, quicker than a flash—the Bear reared. The man sprang backward, tripped and fell, and the Grizzly was upon him. Face to earth the hunter lay like dead, but, ere he struck, Jack caught a scent that made him pause. He smelt his victim, and the smell was the rolling back of curtains or the conjuring up of a past. The days in the hunter's shanty were forgotten, but the feelings of those days were ready to take command at the bidding of the nose. His nose drank deep of a draft that quelled all rage. The Grizzly's humor changed. He turned and left the hunter quite unharmed.

  Oh, blind one with the gun! All he could find in explanation was: "You kin never tell what a Grizzly will do, but it's good play to lay low when he has you cornered." It never came into his mind to credit the shaggy brute with an impulse born of good, and when he told the sheep-herder of his adventure in the pool, of his hitting high on the body and of losing the trail in the forest fire—"down by the shack, when he turned up sudden and had me I thought my last day was come. Why he didn't swat me, I don't know. But I tell you this, Pedro: the B'ar what killed your sheep on the upper pasture and in the sheep cañon is the same. No two B'ars has hind feet alike when you get a clear-cut track, and this holds out even right along."

  "What about the fifty-foot B'ar I saw wit' mine own eyes, caramba?"

  "That must have been the night you were working a kill-care with your sheep-herder's delight. But don't worry; I'll get him yet."

  So Kellyan set out on a long hunt, and put in practice every trick he knew for the circumventing of a Bear. Lou Bonamy was invited to join with him, for his yellow cur was a trailer. They packed four horses with stuff and led them over the ridge to the east side of Tallac, and down away from Jack's Peak, that Kellyan had named in honor of his Bear cub, toward Fallen Leaf Lake. The hunter believed that here he would meet not, only the Gringo Bear that he was after, but would also stand a chance of finding others, for the place had escaped the fire.

  They quickly camped, setting up their canvas sheet for shade more than against rain, and after picketing their horses in a meadow, went out to hunt. By circling around Leaf Lake they got a good idea of the wild population: plenty of deer, some Black Bear, and one or two Cinnamon and Grizzly, and one track along the shore that Kellyan pointed to, briefly saying: "That's him."

  "Ye mean old Pedro's Gringo?"

  "Yep. That's the fifty-foot Grizzly. I suppose he stands maybe seven foot high in daylight, but, 'course, B'ars pulls out long at night."

  So the yellow cur was put on the track, and led away with funny little yelps, while the two hunters came stumbling along behind him as fast as they could, calling, at times, to the dog not to go so fast, and thus making a good deal of noise, which Gringo Jack heard a mile away as he ambled along the mountain-side above them. He was following his nose to many good and eatable things, and therefore going up-wind. This noise behind was so peculiar that he wanted to smell it, and to do that he swung along back over the clamor, then descended to the down-wind side, and thus he came on the trail of the hunters and their dog.

  His nose informed him at once. Here was the hunter he once felt kindly toward and two other smells of far-back—both hateful; all three were now the smell-marks of foes, and a rumbling "woof" was the expressive sound that came from his throat.

  That dog-smell in particular roused him, though it is very sure he had forgotten all about the dog, and Gringo's feet went swiftly and silently, yes, with marvelous silence, along the tracks of the enemy.

  On rough, rocky ground a dog is scarcely quicker than a Bear, and since the dog was constantly held back by the hunters the Bear had no difficulty in overtaking them. Only a hundred yards or so behind he continued, partly in curiosity, pursuing the dog that was pursuing him, till a shift of the wind brought the dog a smell-call from the Bear behind. He wheeled—of course you never follow trail smell when you can find body smell—and came galloping back with a different yapping and a bristling in his mane.

  "Don't understand that," whispered Bonamy.

  "It's B'ar, all right," was the answer; and the dog, bounding high, went straight toward the foe.

  Jack heard him coming, smelt him coming, and at length saw him coming; but it was the smell that roused him—the full scent of the bully of his youth. The anger of those days came on him, and cunning enough to make him lurk in ambush: he backed to one side of the trail where it passed under a root, and, as the little yellow tyrant came, Jack hit him once, hit him as he had done some years before, but now with the power of a grown Grizzly. No yelp escaped the dog, no second blow was needed. The hunters searched in silence for half an hour before they found the place and learned the tale from many silent tongues.

  "I'll get even with him," muttered Bonamy, for he loved that contemptible little yap-cur.

  "That's Pedro's Gringo, all right. He's sure cunning to run his own back track. But we'll fix him yet," and they vowed to kill that Bear or "get done up" themselves.

  Without a dog, they must make a new plan of hunting. They picked out two or three good places for pen-traps, where trees stood in pairs to make the pillars of the den. Then Kellyan returned to camp for the ax while Bonamy prepared the ground.

  As Kellyan came near their open camping-place, he stopped from habit and peeped ahead for a minute. He was about to go down when a movement caught his eye. There, on his haunches, sat a Grizzly, looking down on the camp. The singed brown of his head and neck, and the white spot on each side of his back, left no doubt that Kellyan and Pedro's Gringo were again face to face. It was a long shot, but the rifle went up, and as he was about to fire, the Bear suddenly bent his head down, and lifting his hind paw, began to lick at a little cut. This brought the head and chest nearly in line with Kellyan—a sure shot; so sure that he fired hastily. He missed the head and the shoulder, but, strange to say, he hit the Bear in the mouth and in the hind toe, carrying away one of his teeth and the side of one toe. The Grizzly sprang up with a snort, and came tearing down the hill toward the hunter. Kellyan climbed a tree and got ready, but the camp lay just between them, and the Bear charged on that instead. One sweep of his paw and the canvas tent was down and torn. Whack! and tins went flying this way. Whisk! and flour-sacks went that. Rip! and the flour went off like smoke. Slap—crack! and a boxful of odds and ends was scattered into the fire. Whack! and a bagful of cartridges was tumbled after it. Whang! and the water-pail was crushed. Pat-pat-pat! and all the cups were in useless bits.

  Kellyan, safe up the tree, got no fair view to shoot—could only wait till the storm-center cleared a little. The Bear chanced on a bottle of something with a cork loosely in it. He seized it adroitly in his paws, twisted out the cork, and held the bottle up to his mouth with a comical dexterity that told of previous experience. But, whatever it was, it did not please the invader; he spat and spilled it out, and flung the bottle down as Kellyan gazed, astonished. A remarkable "crack! crack! crack!" from the fire was heard now, and the cartridges began to go off in ones, twos, fours, and numbers
unknown. Gringo whirled about; he had smashed everything in view. He did not like that Fourth of July sound, so, springing to a bank, he went bumping and heaving down to the meadow and had just stampeded the horses when, for the first time, Gringo exposed himself to the hunter's aim. His flank was grazed by another leaden stinger, and Gringo, wheeling, went off into the woods.

  The hunters were badly defeated. It was fully a week before they had repaired all the damage done by their shaggy visitor and were once more at Fallen Leaf Lake with a new store of ammunition and provisions, their tent repaired, and their camp outfit complete. They said little about their vow to kill that Bear. Both took for granted that it was a fight to the finish. They never said, "If we get him," but, "When we get him."

  XI. THE FORD

  Gringo, savage, but still discreet, scaled the long mountain-side when he left the ruined camp, and afar on the southern slope he sought a quiet bed in a manzanita thicket, there to lie down and nurse his wounds and ease his head so sorely aching with the jar of his shattered tooth. There he lay for a day and a night, sometimes in great pain, and at no time inclined to stir. But, driven forth by hunger on the second day, he quit his couch and, making for the nearest ridge, he followed that and searched the wind with his nose. The smell of a mountain hunter reached him. Not knowing just what to do he sat down and did nothing. The smell grew stronger, he heard sounds of trampling; closer they came, then the brush parted and a man on horseback appeared. The horse snorted and tried to wheel, but the ridge was narrow and one false step might have been serious. The cowboy held his horse in hand and, although he had a gun, he made no attempt to shoot at the surly animal blinking at him and barring his path. He was an old mountaineer, and he now used a trick that had long been practised by the Indians, from whom, indeed, he learned it. He began "making medicine with his voice."

  "See here now, B'ar," he called aloud, "I ain't doing nothing to you. I ain't got no grudge ag'in' you, an' you ain't got no right to a grudge ag'in' me."

  "Gro-o-o-h," said Gringo, deep and low.

  "Now, I don't want no scrap with you, though I have my scrap-iron right handy, an' what I want you to do is just step aside an' let me pass that narrer trail an' go about my business."

  "Grow—woo-oo-wow," grumbled Gringo.

  "I'm honest about it, pard. You let me alone, and I'll let you alone; all I want is right of way for five minutes."

  "Grow-grow-wow-oo-umph," was the answer.

  "Ye see, thar's no way round an' on'y one way through, an' you happen to be settin' in it. I got to take it, for I can't turn back. Come, now, is it a bargain—hands off and no scrap?"

  It is very sure that Gringo could see in this nothing but a human making queer, unmenacing, monotonous sounds, so giving a final "Gr-u-ph," the Bear blinked his eyes, rose to his feet and strode down the bank, and the cowboy forced his unwilling horse to and past the place.

  "Wall, wall," he chuckled, "I never knowed it to fail. Thar's whar most B'ars is alike."

  If Gringo had been able to think clearly, he might have said: "This surely is a new kind of man."

  "NOW, B'AR, I DON'T WANT NO SCRAP WITH YOU"

  XII. SWIRL AND POOL AND GROWING FLOOD

  Gringo wandered on with nose alert, passing countless odors of berries, roots, grouse, deer, till a new and pleasing smell came with especial force. It was not sheep, or game, or a dead thing. It was a smell of living meat. He followed the guide to a little meadow, and there he found it. There were five of them, red, or red and white—great things as big as himself; but he had no fear of them. The hunter instinct came on him, and the hunter's audacity and love of achievement. He sneaked toward them upwind in order that he might still smell them, and it also kept them from smelling him. He reached the edge of the wood. Here he must stop or be seen. There was a watering-place close by. He silently drank, then lay down in a thicket where he could watch. An hour passed thus. The sun went down and the cattle arose to graze. One of them, a small one, wandered nearer, then, acting suddenly with purpose, walked to the water-hole. Gringo watched his chance, and as she floundered in the mud and stooped he reared and struck with all his force. Square at her skull he aimed, and the blow went straight. But Gringo knew nothing of horns. The young, sharp horn, upcurling, hit his foot and was broken off; the blow lost half its power. The beef went down, but Gringo had to follow up the blow, then raged and tore in anger for his wounded paw. The other cattle fled from the scene. The Grizzly took the heifer in his jaws, then climbed the hill to his lair, and with this store of food he again lay down to nurse his wounds. Though painful, they were not serious, and within a week or so Grizzly Jack was as well as ever and roaming the woods about Fallen Leaf Lake and farther south and east, for he was extending his range as he grew—the king was coming to his kingdom. In time he met others of his kind and matched his strength with theirs. Sometimes he won and sometimes lost, but he kept on growing as the months went by, growing and learning and adding to his power.

  Kellyan had kept track of him and knew at least the main facts of his life, because he had one or two marks that always served to distinguish him. A study of the tracks had told of the round wound in the front foot and the wound in the hind foot. But there was another: the hunter had picked up the splinters of bone at the camp where he had fired at the Bear, and, after long doubt, he guessed that he had broken a tusk. He hesitated to tell the story of hitting a tooth and hind toe at the same shot till, later, he had clearer proof of its truth.

  No two animals are alike. Kinds which herd have more sameness than those that do not, and the Grizzly, being a solitary kind, shows great individuality. Most Grizzlies mark their length on the trees by rubbing their backs, and some will turn on the tree and claw it with their fore paws; others hug the tree with fore paws and rake it with their hind claws. Gringo's peculiarity of marking was to rub first, then turn and tear the trunk with his teeth.

  It was on examining one of the Bear trees one day that Kellyan discovered the facts. He had been tracking the Bear all morning, had a fine set of tracks in the dusty trail, and thus learned that the rifle-wound was a toe-shot in the hind foot, but his fore foot of the same side had a large round wound, the one really made by the cow's horn. When he came to the Bear tree where Gringo had carved his initials, the marks were clearly made by the Bear's teeth, and one of the upper tusks was broken off, so the evidence of identity was complete.

  "It's the same old B'ar," said Lan to his pard.

  They failed to get sight of him in all this time, so the partners set to work at a series of Bear-traps. These are made of heavy logs and have a sliding door of hewn planks. The bait is on a trigger at the far end; a tug on this lets the door drop. It was a week's hard work to make four of these traps. They did not set them at once, for no Bear will go near a thing so suspiciously new-looking. Some Bears will not approach one till it is weather-beaten and gray. But they removed all chips and covered the newly cut wood with mud, then rubbed the inside with stale meat, and hung a lump of ancient venison on the trigger of each trap.

  They did not go around for three days, knowing that the human smell must first be dissipated, and then they found but one trap sprung—the door down. Bonamy became greatly excited, for they had crossed the Grizzly's track close by. But Kellyan had been studying the dust and suddenly laughed aloud.

  "Look at that,"—he pointed to a thing like a Bear-track, but scarcely two inches long. "There's the B'ar we'll find in that; that's a bushy-tailed B'ar," and Bonamy joined in the laugh when he realized that the victim in the big trap was nothing but a little skunk.

  "Next time we'll set the bait higher and not set the trigger so fine."

  They rubbed their boots with stale meat when they went the rounds, then left the traps for a week.

  There are Bears that eat little but roots and berries; there are Bears that love best the great black salmon they can hook out of the pools when the long "run" is on; and there are Bears that have a special fondness for flesh. These are rar
e; they are apt to develop unusual ferocity and meet an early death. Gringo was one of them, and he grew like the brawny, meat-fed gladiators of old—bigger, stronger, and fiercer than his fruit-and root-fed kin. In contrast with this was his love of honey. The hunter on his trail learned that he never failed to dig out any bees' nest he could find, or, finding none, he would eat the little honey-flowers that hung like sleigh-bells on the heather. Kellyan was quick to mark the signs. "Say, Bonamy, we've got to find some honey."

  It is not easy to find a bee tree without honey to fill your bee-guides; so Bonamy rode down the mountain to the nearest camp, the Tampico sheep camp, and got not honey but some sugar, of which they made syrup. They caught bees at three or four different places, tagged them with cotton, filled them with syrup and let them fly, watching till the cotton tufts were lost to view, and by going on the lines till they met they found the hive. A piece of gunny-sack filled with comb was put on each trigger, and that night, as Gringo strode with that long, untiring swing that eats up miles like steam-wheels, his sentinel nose reported the delicious smell, the one that above the rest meant joy. So Gringo Jack followed fast and far, for the place was a mile away, and reaching the curious log cavern, he halted and sniffed. There were hunters' smells; yes, but, above all, that smell of joy. He walked around to be sure, and knew it was inside; then cautiously he entered. Some wood-mice scurried by. He sniffed the bait, licked it, mumbled it, slobbered it, reveled in it, tugged to increase the flow, when "bang!" went the great door behind and Jack was caught. He backed up with a rush, bumped into the door, and had a sense, at least, of peril. He turned over with an effort and attacked the door, but it was strong. He examined the pen; went all around the logs where their rounded sides seemed easiest to tear at with his teeth. But they yielded nothing. He tried them all; he tore at the roof, the floor; but all were heavy, hard logs, spiked and pinned as one.