The Secret Trails Part 7

Star returned his gaze with placid indifference, but Buck was annoyed.

In his eyes the fox was a little sharp-nosed dog with a bushy tail and an exasperating smell. He hated all dogs, but especially little ones, because they were so elusive when they yapped at his heels. He heaved himself up with an angry snort, and charged upon the intruder. The fox, without losing his dignity at all, seemed to drift easily out of reach, to this side or that, till the ox grew tired of the futile chase.

Moreover, as the fox made no sound and no demonstration of heel-snapping, Buck's anger presently faded out, and he returned to his partner's side and lay down again. And the fox, his curiosity satisfied, trotted away.

A little later there came a stealthy crashing through the darkness of the underbush in the rear. But the two oxen never turned their heads. To them the ominous sound had no significance whatever. A few paces behind them the crashing came to a sudden stop. A bear, lumbering down toward the brook-side, to grub in the soft earth for edible roots, had caught the sound of their breathing and chewing. He knew the sound, for he, too, like the fox, had prowled about the pasture fence at night. As noiselessly as a shadow he crept nearer, till he could make out the contented pair. He knew they belonged to the man, and it made him uneasy to see them there, so far from where they belonged. He sniffed the air cautiously, to see if the man was with them. No, the man was not there, that was soon obvious. He had no thought of attacking them; they were much too formidable to be meddled with. But why were they there? The circ.u.mstance was, therefore, dangerous. Perhaps the man was designing some sort of trap for him. He drew back cautiously, and made off by the way he had come. He had a wholesome respect for the man, and for all his works and belongings.

In the first, mysterious, gla.s.sy grey of dawn, when thin wisps of vapour clung curling among the gra.s.s-tops, the two wanderers got up and fell to grazing. Then Star, who was beginning to feel homesick for old pasture fields, strayed away irresolutely toward the road for home. Buck, however, would have none of it. He marched off toward the brook, splashed through, and fell to pasturing again on the farther side. Star, not enduring to be left alone, immediately joined him.

That day the pair pressed onward, deeper and deeper into the wilds, Buck ever eager on the unknown quest, Star ever reluctant, but persuaded. As a matter of fact, had Star been resolute enough in his reluctance, had he had the independence to lie down and refuse to go farther, he would have gained the day, for Buck would never have forsaken him. But initiative ruled inertia, as is usually the case, and Buck's adventuring spirit had its way.

It was a rugged land, but hospitable enough to the wanderers in this affluent late June weather, through which Buck so confidently led the way. The giant tangle of the forest was broken by frequent wild meadows, and foaming streams, and lonely little granite-bordered lakes, and stretches of sun-steeped barren, all bronze green with blueberry scrub.

There was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, and when the flies and the heat grew troublesome, it was pleasant to wallow in the cold, amber-brown pools. Even Star began to forget the home pasture, and content himself with the freedom which he had never craved.

How far and to what goal the urge in Buck's untamed heart would have carried them before exhausting itself, there is no telling. But he had challenged without knowledge the old, implacable sphinx of the wilderness. And suddenly, to his undoing, the challenge was accepted.

On the third day of their wanderings the pair came out upon a river too deep and wide for even Buck's daring to attempt to cross. The banks were steep--a succession of rocky bluffs, broken by deep lateral bayous, and strips of interval meadows where brooks came in through a fringe of reeds and alders. Buck turned northward, following the bank up stream, sometimes close to the edge, sometimes a little way back, wheresoever the easier path or the most tempting patches of pasturage might seem to lead. He was searching always for some feasible crossing, for his instinct led him always to get over any barrier. That his path toward the west had been barred only confirmed him in his impulse to work westward.

Late that afternoon, as they burst out, through thick bushes, into a little gra.s.sy glade, they surprised a bear-cub playing with a big yellow fungus, which he boxed and cuffed about--carefully, so as not to break his plaything--as a kitten boxes a ball. To Buck, of course, the playful cub was only another dog, which might be expected to come yapping and snapping at his heels. With an indignant snort he charged it.

The cub, at that ominous sound, looked up in astonishment. But when he saw the terrible red form dashing down upon him across the gra.s.s, he gave a squeal of terror and fled for the shelter of the trees. He was too young, however, for any great speed or agility, and he had none of the dog's artfulness in dodging. Before he could gain cover he was overtaken. Buck's ma.s.sive front caught him on his haunches, smashing him into the ground. He gave one agonized squall, and then the life was crushed out of him.

Amazed at this easy success--the first of the kind he had ever had--but immensely proud of himself, the great red ox drew off and eyed his victim for a second or two, his tail lashing his sides in angry triumph.

Then he fell to goring the small black body, and tossing it into the air, and battering it again with his forehead as it came down. He was taking deep vengeance for all the yelping curs which had worried and eluded him in the past.

In the midst of this congenial exercise he caught sight, out of the corner of his eye, of a big black shape just hurling itself upon him.

The mother bear, a giant of her kind, had come to the cry of her little one.

Buck whirled with amazing nimbleness to meet the attack. He was in time to escape the blow which would have cracked even his mighty neck, but the long, steel-hard claws of his a.s.sailant fairly raked off one side of his face, destroying one eye completely. At the same time, with a shrill bellow, he lunged forward, driving a short, punishing horn deep into the bear's chest and hurling her back upon her haunches.

Dreadful as was his own injury, this fortunate thrust gave him the advantage for the moment. But, being unlearned in battle, he did not know enough to follow it up. He drew back to prepare for another charge, and paused to stamp the ground, and bellow, and shake his horribly wounded head.

The mother, heedless of her own deep wound, turned to sniff, whimpering, at the body of her cub. Seeing at once that it was quite dead, she wheeled like a flash and hurled herself again upon the slayer. As she wheeled she came upon Buck's blinded side. He lunged forward once again, mad for the struggle. But this time, half blind as he was, he was easily eluded, for the old bear was a skilled fighter. A monstrous weight crashed down upon his neck, just behind the ears, and the bright green world grew black before him. He stumbled heavily forward on knees and muzzle, with a choking bellow. The bear struck again, and with the other paw tore out his throat, falling upon him and mauling him with silent fury as he rolled over upon his side.

Star, meanwhile, being ever slow of wit and of purpose, had been watching with startled eyes, unable to take in the situation, although a strange heat was beginning to stretch his veins. But when he saw his yoke-mate stumble forward on his muzzle, when he heard that choking bellow of anguish, then the unaccustomed fire found its way up into his brain. He saw red, and, with a nimbleness far beyond that of Buck at his swiftest, he launched himself into the battle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He launched himself into the battle.]

The bear, absorbed in the fulness of her vengeance, was taken absolutely by surprise. It was as if a ton of rock had been hurled against her flank, rolling her over and crushing her at the same time. In his rage the great red ox seemed suddenly to develop an apt.i.tude for the battle.

Twisting his head, he buried one horn deep in his adversary's belly, where he ripped and tore with the all-destructive fury of a mad rhinoceros. The bear's legs closed convulsively about his head and shoulders, but in the next instant they relaxed again, falling away loosely as that ploughing horn reached and pierced the heart. Then Star drew back, and stood shaking his head to clear the blood out of his eyes.

For two days and nights Star stood over his yoke-mate's body, leaving his post only for a few yards and for a few minutes, at long intervals, to crop a mouthful of gra.s.s or to drink at that cold stream which ran past the edge of the tragic glade. On the third day two woodsmen, pa.s.sing down the river in a canoe, were surprised to hear the lowing of an ox in that desolate place, far from even the remotest settler's cabin. The lowing was persistent and appealing. They went ash.o.r.e and investigated.

At the scene which they came upon in the sunny little glade they stood marvelling. After a time their shrewd conjectures, initiated as they were in all the mysteries of the wild, arrived at a fairly accurate interpretation of it all.

"It was sure some sc.r.a.p, anyhow," was the final conclusion of one grizzled investigator; and "Wish't we could 'a' seen it," of the other.

Then, the big red ox, with blood caked over head and horns, being too admired as well as too valuable to be left behind, they decided that one of them should stop on sh.o.r.e and drive him, while the other followed slowly in the canoe.

At first Star refused stolidly to budge from his dead comrade's side.

But the woodsman was in winter a teamster, and what he did not know about driving oxen was not worth knowing. He cut a long white stick like an ox-goad, took his place at Star's side, gave him a firm prod in the flank, and cried in a voice of authority: "Haw, Bright!"

At the old command, although "Bright" was not the right name, Star seemed once more to feel the familiar, and to him not unpleasant, pressure of the yoke upon his neck. He swerved obediently to the left, lowering his head and throwing his weight forward to start the imaginary load, and moved away as his new master ordered. And gradually, as he went, directed this way or that by the sharp commands of "Gee!" or "Haw!" and the light reminder of the goad, his grief for his yoke-fellow began to dull its edge. It was comforting to be once more controlled, to be s.n.a.t.c.hed back into servitude from a freedom which had proved so strenuous and so terrible.

The Trailers

Young Stan Murray turned on his heel and went into the house for his gun. His breast boiled with pity and indignation. The hired man, coming down from the Upper Field, had just told him that two more of his sheep had been killed by the bears. The sheep were of fine stock, only lately introduced to the out-settlements, and they were Stan's special charge.

These two last made seven that the bears had taken within six weeks.

Stan Murray, with the robust confidence of his eighteen years, vowed that the marauder, or marauders, should be brought to an accounting without more ado, though it should take him a week to trail them down.

He stuffed some hardtack biscuits and a generous lump of cheese into his pockets, saw that his Winchester repeater was duly charged, buckled on his cartridge-belt, and started for the Upper Field.

The hired man led him to the scene of the tragedy. The two victims--both full-grown sheep--had been struck down close to the edge of the field, within a dozen yards of each other. Nothing was left of them there but their woolly skins and big sploshes of darkened blood on the stiff turf of the pasture. The carcases had evidently been dragged or carried off into the dark seclusion of the fir woods which bordered the top and farther side of the field. It was now just after midday, and Stan and the hired man agreed, after examination of all the signs, that the killing must have taken place early the previous night.

"It's a long ways from here them b'ar'll be by this time, I'm thinkin',"

said the hired man. Not a native of the backwoods, he was little versed in wilderness lore.

"Not at all," corrected Murray. "Like as not they're within a half mile or so of us now. They wouldn't lug those fat sheep far. They'd just eat what they wanted an' hide the rest in the bushes. And they'd come back an' finish it up when they'd slept off the first feed. What would they want to travel for, when they'd got such a dead easy thing right here?"

"Um-m-m!" grunted the hired man grudgingly. "Mebbe you're right. But I'd like to know who's been here afore us, an' _rolled up_ this here skin so tidy-like? T'other skin's left all of a heap, mebbe because it's so torn 'tain't no good to n.o.body."

The young woodsman laughed, for all his vexation of spirit.

"Lot you know about bears, Tom," said he. "You see, there's been _two_ bears here on this job, curse their dirty hides! One's a youngster, an'

don't know much about skinning a sheep. He's just clawed off the skin any old way, an' made a mess of it, as you see. But the other's an old hand, evidently, an' knows what he's about--an old she, likely, an'

perhaps mother of the young one. _She's_ known how to _peel_ off the skin, rolling it up that way quite as a man might do. Now, Tom, you get along back home, an' take the skins with you. I'm going after those two, an' I'm not coming home till I've squared up with 'em over this here deal."

For half a mile or more back into the woods the trail of the marauders was a plain one to follow. Then Murray found the remnants of the two victims hidden in a ma.s.s of thick underbush, several yards apart. The tracks of the two bears encircled the spot, a plain proclamation of ownership to any other of the wild creatures which might be inclined to trespa.s.s on that domain. And on the trunk of a tall spruce, standing close beside the hiding-place, the initiated eyes of young Murray detected another warning to intruders. The bark at a considerable height was scored by the marks of mighty claws. The larger bear, after her meal, had stretched herself like a cat, rearing herself and digging in her claws against the trunk. And the great height of her reach was a pointed announcement that her displeasure would be a perilous thing to reckon with. As Stan Murray stood, estimating the stature of his foe, his eyes began to sparkle. This would be a trophy worth winning, the hide and head of such a bear. His wrath against the slayers of his sheep died away into the emulous zest of the hunter.

The bears, their hunger satisfied, had gone on straight back into the wilderness, instead of hanging about the scene of their triumph or crawling into a neighbouring thicket, as Murray had expected, to sleep off their heavy feast. Murray thought he knew all about bears. As a matter of fact, he did know a lot about them. What he did _not_ know was that no one, however experienced and sympathetic an observer, ever does achieve to know _all_ about them. The bear is at the opposite pole from the sheep. He is an individualist. He does not care to do as his neighbour does. He is ever ready to adapt his habits, as well as his diet, to the varying of circ.u.mstance. He loves to depart from his rules and confound the naturalists. When you think you've got him, he turns out to be an old black stump, and laughs in his s.h.a.ggy sleeve from some other hidden post of observation. He makes all the other kindred of the wild, except, perhaps, the shrewd fox, seem like foolish children beside him.

For a good hour Murray followed the trail of the two bears, at times with some difficulty, as the forest gave way in places to breadths of hard and stony barren, where the great pads left smaller trace. At last, to his annoyance, in a patch of swamp, where the trail was very clear, he realized that he was now following one bear only, and that the smaller of the two. He cast a.s.siduously from side to side, but in vain.

He harked back along the trail for several hundred yards, but he could find no sign of the other bear, nor of where she had branched off. And it was just that other that he wanted. However, he decided that as the two were working together, he would probably find the second by keeping on after the first, rather than by questing at large for a lost trail.

In any case, as he now reminded himself, it was not a trophy, but vengeance for his slaughtered sheep that he was out for.

The trail he had been following hitherto had been hours old. Now, of a sudden, he noticed with a start that it had become amazingly fresh--so fresh, indeed, that he felt he might come upon his quarry at any instant. How did it happen that the trail had thus grown fresh all at once? Decidedly puzzled, he halted abruptly and sat down upon a stump to consider the problem.

At last he came to the conclusion that, somewhere to his rear, the quarry must have swerved off to one side or the other, either lain down for a brief siesta, or made a wide detour, then circled back into the old trail just a little way in advance of him. Again, it seemed, he had overshot the important and revealing point of the trail. He was nettled, disappointed in himself. His first impulse was to retrace his steps minutely, and try to verify this conclusion. Then he reflected that, after all, he had better content himself with the fact that he was now close on the heels of the fugitive, and vengeance, perhaps, almost within his grasp. To go back, for the mere sake of proving a theory, would be to lose his advantage. Moreover, the afternoon was getting on.

He decided to push forward.

But now he went warily, peering to this side and to that, and scrutinizing every thicket, every stump and ma.s.sive bole. He felt that he had been too confident, and made too much noise in his going. It was pretty certain that the quarry would by now be aware of the pursuit, and cunningly _on_ guard. Twice he had been worsted in woodcraft. He was determined that the marauders should not score off him a third time.

For another half-hour he kept on, moving now as noiselessly as a mink, and watchfully as a wood-mouse. Yet the trail went on as before, and he could detect no sign that he was gaining on the elusive quarry. At last, grown suddenly conscious of hunger, he sat down upon a mossy stone and proceeded to munch his crackers and cheese. He was getting rather out of conceit with himself, and the meal, hungry though he was, seemed tasteless.

As he sat there, gnawing discontentedly at his dry fare, he began to feel conscious of being watched. The short hairs on the back of his neck tingled and rose. He looked around sharply, but he could see nothing.

Very softly he rose to his feet. With minutest scrutiny his eyes searched every object within view. The mingled shadows of the forest were confusing, of course, but his trained eyes knew how to differentiate them. Nevertheless, neither behind, nor before, nor on either side could he make out any living thing, except a little black-and-white woodp.e.c.k.e.r, which peered at him with unwinking curiosity from a gnarled trunk a dozen feet away. From the woodp.e.c.k.e.r his glance wandered upwards and interrogated the lower branches of the surrounding trees. At last he made out the gleam of a pair of pale, malevolent eyes glaring down upon him from a high branch. Then he made out the shadowy shape, flattened close to the branch, of a large wild-cat.

Murray disliked the whole tribe of the wild-cats, as voracious destroyers of game and cunning depredators upon his poultry, and his rifle went instantly to his shoulder. But he lowered it again with a short laugh. He was not bothering just then with wild-cats. He cursed himself softly as "getting nervous," and sat down again to resume his meal, satisfied that the sensation at the back of his neck was now explained.