The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West Part 30

To this the Mexican answered by rolling his eyes and exclaiming "Hoh!"

with a degree of vigour that left his hearers to imagine anything they pleased, and then settle it in their minds that the thing so imagined was out of all sight short of the mark.

The excitement of the man at last fully roused the sleepy crew, and Croft sprang up with the agility of a cat.

"Ho! boys," he cried, proceeding to buckle his garments round him, "up with you. Ketch the hosses, an' put to. Look alive, will you? grease your jints, _do_. Now, strangers, I'll shew you how we ketch a bar in this lo-cation; bring yer rules, for sometimes he breaks his trap, an'

isn't there a spree jist!"

We need scarcely remark, that the latter part of this speech was made to Sinton and his comrade, who were drawing the charges of their revolvers and reloading.

"Is the trap far off?" inquired Ned.

"Quarter of an hour, or so. Look sharp, lads."

This exhortation was unnecessary, for the men had already caught three stout horses, all of which were attached to an enormous waggon or van, whose broad wheels accounted for the tracks discovered in the valley on the previous evening.

"That's his cage," said the bear-catcher, replying to Ned's look of inquiry. "It's all lined with sheet-iron, and would hold an ontamed streak o' lightnin', it would. Now, then, drive ahead."

The lumbering machine jolted slowly down the hill as he spoke, and while several of the party remained with the horses, Croft and our travellers, with the remainder, pushed on ahead. In less than twenty minutes, they came to a ravine filled with thick underwood, from the recesses of which came forth sounds of fierce ursine wrath that would have deterred most men from entering; but Croft knew his game was secure, and led the way confidently through the bushes, until he reached a spot on which stood what appeared to be a small log-cabin without door or window. Inside of this cabin an enormous grizzly-bear raged about furiously, thrusting his snout and claws through the interstices of the logs, and causing splinters to fly all round him, while he growled in tones of the deepest indignation.

"Oh! ain't he a bit o' thunder?" cried Croft, as he walked round the trap, gazing in with glittering eyes at every opening between the logs.

"How in the world did you get him in there?" asked Ned Sinton, as soon as his astonishment had abated sufficiently to loosen his tongue.

"Easy enough," replied Croft. "If ye obsarve the top o' the trap, ye'll see the rope that suspended it from the limb o' that oak. Inside there was a bit o' beef, so fixed up, that when Mister Caleb laid hold of it, he pulled a sort o' trigger, an' down came the trap, shuttin' him in slick, as ye see."

At this moment the powerful animal struggled so violently that he tilted his prison on one side, and well-nigh overturned it.

"Look out, lads," shouted Croft, darting towards a tree, and c.o.c.king his rifle,--actions in which he was imitated by all the rest of the party, with surprising agility.

"Don't fire till it turns over," he cried, sternly, on observing that two of the more timid members of his band were about to fire at the animal's legs, which appeared below the edge of the trap. Fortunately, the bear ceased its efforts just at that critical moment, and the trap fell heavily back to its original position.

"By good luck!" shouted Croft; "an' here comes the cage. Range up on the left, boys, and out with the hosses, they won't stand this."

The terrified animals were removed from the scene, trembling violently from head to foot, and the whole band, applying their shoulders to the wheels, slowly pushed the vehicle alongside of the trap until the sides of the two met.

There was a strong door in the side of the trap, which was now removed by being pulled inwards, revealing to bruin an aperture which corresponded to another door opening into the iron-lined cage. There were stout iron bars ready to be shot home the instant he condescended to pa.s.s through this entrance; but Caleb, as Croft called him, shewed himself sadly dest.i.tute of an inquiring disposition. He knew that there was now a hole in his prison-wall, for he looked at it; he knew that a hole either conducted into a place or out of it, for life-long experience had taught him that; yet he refused to avail himself of the opportunity, and continued to rage round the trap, glaring between the logs at his foes outside. It is unreasonable to suppose that he was afraid to go into the hole because it was a _dark_ one, for he was well accustomed to such dark dens; besides, no one who looked at him could for a moment suppose that he was, or could be, afraid of anything at all. We must, therefore, put his conduct down to sheer obstinacy.

The men poked him with sticks; shouted at him; roared in his face; threw water over him; and even tried the effect of a shot of powder at his flank; but all to no purpose, although their efforts were continued vigorously for full two hours. The bear would _not_ enter that hole on any account whatever.

"Try another shot of powder at him," cried Croft, whose patience was now almost exhausted.

The shot was fired at his flank, and was received with a ferocious growl, while the strong wood-work of the trap trembled under his efforts to escape.

"Ain't it vexin'?" said Croft, sitting down on the stump of a tree and wiping the perspiration from his forehead. Ned Sinton and Tom, who had done their utmost to a.s.sist their new acquaintance, sat down beside him and admitted that it _was_ vexing. As if by one impulse, the whole party then sat down to rest, and at that moment, having, as it were, valiantly a.s.serted his right of independent action, the bear turned slowly round and quietly scrambled through the hole. The men sprang up; the ma.s.sive iron bars were shot into their sockets with a clang; and bruin was a prisoner for life.

As neither Edward Sinton nor Tom Collins had any particular desire to become bear-catchers, they bade their new friends adieu that afternoon, and continued their journey. The road, as they advanced, became more and more steep and rugged, so that they could only proceed at a walk, and in many places experienced considerable difficulty, and ran no little risk, in pa.s.sing along the faces of cliffs, where the precipices ascended hundreds of feet upwards like walls, on the one hand, and descended sheer down into an unfathomable abyss, on the other. But the exceeding grandeur of the scenery amply repaid their toils, and the deep roar of that mighty cataract ever sounded in their ears. At length they reached the head of the valley, and stood under the spray of the fall, which, expanding far above and around the seething caldron whence it sprang, drenched the surrounding country with perpetual showers.

Here a gap or pa.s.s in the mountains was discovered, ascending on the left, and affording, apparently, an exit from the valley. Up this the travellers toiled until they cleared the spray of the falls, and then sat down beside a clump of trees to dry their garments in the sunshine and to cook their mid-day meal.

"What a glorious thing it is, Tom, to wander thus unrestrained amid such scenes!" said Ned Sinton, as he busied himself roasting a piece of venison, which his rifle had procured but half-an-hour before. "How infinitely more delightful than travelling in the civilised world, where one is cheated at every turn, and watched and guarded as if robbery, or murder, or high treason were the only probable objects a traveller could have in view."

"`Comparisons,' my dear fellow--you know the proverb," replied Tom Collins; "don't uphold California at the expense of the continent.

Besides, there are many in this world who would rather a thousand times wander by the cla.s.sic lake of Como, with its theatrical villas and its enchanting sunshine and perfume, or paddle up the castellated Rhine, than scramble here among wild rocks, and woods, and cataracts, with the chance of meeting an occasional savage or a grizzly-bear."

"Go on, my boy," said Ned, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, "you haven't read me half a lesson yet. Besides, the `many' you refer to, are there not hundreds, ay, thousands, whose chief enjoyment in travelling is derived from the historical a.s.sociations called up by the sight of the ruined castles and temples of cla.s.sic ground--whose delight it is to think that here Napoleon crossed the Alps, as Hannibal did before him, (and many a n.o.body has done after him), that there, within these mouldering ruins, the oracles of old gave forth their voice-- forgetting, perhaps, too easily, while they indulge in these reminiscences of the past, that the warrior's end was wholesale murder, and that the oracle spoke only to deceive poor ignorant human nature.

Ha! I would not give one hearty dash into pure, uncontaminated nature for all the famous `tours' put together."

Ned looked round him as he spoke, with a glow of enthusiasm that neither badinage nor philosophy could check.

"Just look around thee," he continued; "open thine ears, Tom, to the music of yon cataract, and expand thy nostrils to the wild perfume of these pines."

"I wouldn't, at this moment," quietly remarked Tom, "exchange for it the perfume of that venison steak, of which I pray thee to be more regardful, else thou'lt upset it into the fire."

"Oh! Tom--incorrigible!"

"Not at all, Ned. While you flatter yourself that you have all the enthusiastic study of nature to yourself, here have I succeeded, within the last few minutes, in solving a problem in natural history which has puzzled my brains for weeks past."

"And, pray thee, what may that be, most sapient philosopher?"

"Do you see yonder bird clinging to the stem of that tree, and pitching into it as if it were its most deadly foe?"

"I do--a woodp.e.c.k.e.r it is."

"Well," continued Tom, sitting down before his portion of the venison steak, "that bird has cleared up two points in natural history, which have, up till this time, been a mystery to me. The one was, why woodp.e.c.k.e.rs should spend their time in pecking the trees so incessantly; the other was, how it happened that several trees I have cut down could have had so many little holes bored in their trunks, and an acorn neatly inserted into each. Now that little bird has settled the question for me. I caught him in the act not ten minutes ago. He flew to that tree with an acorn in his beak, tried to insert it into a hole, which didn't fit, being too small; so he tried another, which did fit, poked the nut in, small end first, and tapped it scientifically home. Now, why did he do it? That's the question."

"Because he wanted to, probably," remarked Ned; "and very likely he lays up a store of food for winter in this manner."

"Very possibly. I shall make a note of this, for I'm determined to have it sifted to the bottom. Meanwhile, I'll trouble you for another junk of venison."

It was many weeks afterwards ere Tom Collins succeeded in sifting this interesting point to the bottom; but perhaps the reader may not object to have the result of his inquiries noted at this point in our story.

Many of the trees in California, on being stripped of their bark, are found to be perforated all over with holes about the size of a musket-ball. These are pierced by the woodp.e.c.k.e.r with such precision and regularity that one might believe they had been cut out by a ship-carpenter. The summer is spent by this busy little bird in making these holes and in filling them with acorns. One acorn goes to one hole, and the bird will not try to force the nut into a hole that is too small for it, but flutters round the tree until it finds one which fits it exactly. Thus one by one the holes are filled, and a store of food is laid up for winter use in a larder which secures it from the elements, and places it within reach of the depositor when the winter snows have buried all the acorns that lie upon the ground, and put them beyond the reach of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. The birds never encroach on their store until the snow has covered the ground, then they begin to draw upon their bank; and it is a curious fact that the bills of these birds are always honoured, for their instinct enables them to detect the bad nuts with unerring certainty, so that their bank is always filled with good ones. This matter of selecting the good nuts is a mere chance with men, for often those sh.e.l.ls which seem the soundest, are found to contain a grub instead of a nut. Even the sagacious Indian is an uncertain judge in this respect, but the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, provided by an all-wise Creator with an unerring instinct, never makes a mistake in selecting its store of food for winter.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

CURIOUS TREES, AND STILL MORE CURIOUS PLAINS--AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY, FOLLOWED BY A SAD ONE--FATE OF TRAVELLERS IN THE MOUNTAINS--A SUDDEN ILLNESS--NED PROVES HIMSELF TO BE A FRIEND IN NEED AND IN DEED, AS WELL AS AN EXCELLENT DOCTOR, HUNTER, COOK, AND NURSE--DEER-SHOOTING BY FIRELIGHT.

During the course of their wanderings among the mountains our hero and his companion met with many strange adventures and saw many strange sights, which, however, we cannot afford s.p.a.ce to dwell upon here.

Their knowledge in natural history, too, was wonderfully increased, for they were both observant men, and the school of nature is the best in which any one can study. Audubon, the hunter-naturalist of America, knew this well! and few men have added so much as he to the sum of human knowledge in his peculiar department, while fewer still have so wonderfully enriched the pages of romantic adventure in wild, unknown regions.

In these wanderings, too, Ned and Tom learned to know experimentally that truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and that if the writers of fairy-tales had travelled more they would have saved their imaginations a deal of trouble, and produced more extraordinary works.

The size of the trees they encountered was almost beyond belief, though none of them surpa.s.sed the giant of which an account has been already given. Among other curious trees they found _sugar-pines_ growing in abundance in one part of the country. This is, perhaps, the most graceful of all the pines. With a perfectly straight and cylindrical stem and smooth bark, it rears its proud crest high above other trees, and flings its giant limbs abroad, like a sentinel guarding the forest.

The stem rises to about four-fifths of its height perfectly free of branches; above this point the branches spread out almost horizontally, drooping a little at the ends from the weight of the huge cones which they bear. These cones are about a foot-and-a-half long, and under each leaf lies a seed the size of a pea, which has an agreeably sweet taste, and is much esteemed by the Indians, who use it as an article of food.

Another remarkable sight they saw was a plain, of some miles in extent, completely covered with shattered pieces of quartz, which shone with specks and veins of pure gold. Of course they had neither time nor inclination to attempt the laborious task of pulverising this quartz in order to obtain the precious metal; but Ned moralised a little as they galloped over the plain, spurning the gold beneath their horses' hoofs, as if it had been of no value whatever! They both puzzled themselves also to account for so strange an appearance; but the only solution that seemed to them at all admissible was, that a quartz vein had, at some early period of the world's history, been shattered by a volcanic eruption, and the plain thus strewn with gold.