Part 10 (1/2)

The rancher leant his gun against the window sill, and then departed hastily.

The deserted huts seemed very lonely indeed when they had gone, but Dorothy was a healthy, prairie-bred girl, and not given to torturing herself with vain imaginings.

She went indoors, and, for the next few minutes busied herself in cleaning up and stowing away the dinner things.

This done, she resolved to go outside, for a wonderful change had come about in the weather. It was only too obvious that a new Spring had been born, and already its mild, quickening breath was weakening the grip of King Frost.

Dorothy walked over towards the pines. She could detect a resinous, aromatic odour in the air. Here and there a pile of snow on the flat boughs would lose its grip on the roughened surface and slip to earth with a hollow thud. She skirted the outhouses, and then made for the long, low-roofed hut again. She was pa.s.sing a large pile of cord-wood which she noted was built in the form of a square, when, happening to look into it, she saw something that for the moment caused her heart to stop beating and paralysed her with fear. It was a great gaunt cinnamon bear, which, seated on its haunches, was watching her with a look of comical surprise upon its preternaturally shrewd, human-like face.

Dorothy's heart was thumping like a steam-engine. Fear, indeed, seemed to give her wings, for she gathered up her skirts and ran towards the house as she had never run in her life.

But the bear had just an hour or so before risen from his long winter's sleep, influenced, doubtless, by those ”blind motions of the earth that showed the year had turned”; feeling uncommonly empty, and therefore uncommonly hungry, he had left his cave in the hillside lower down the valley to saunter upwards in search of a meal. The horses had unfortunately scented him before he was aware of their proximity, and, with that lively terror which all animals evince in the neighbourhood of bears, had broken madly away, to Bruin's great chagrin. If he had not been half asleep, and therefore stupid, he would have crawled upon them from the lee side, and been on the back, or at the throat, of one before they could have divined his presence. The noise of the men's voices had startled him, and he had gone into the wood heap to collect his thoughts and map out a new plan of campaign.

The voices had ceased, but there was a nice, fresh-looking girl, who had walked right into his very arms, as it were. It was not likely he was going to turn up his nose at her. On the contrary, he would embrace the opportunity--and the young lady.

He must, indeed, have still been half asleep, for he had given Dorothy time to make a start, and there was no questioning the fact that she could run. Bruin gathered himself together and made after her. Now, to look at a bear running, one would not imagine he was going at any great rate; his long, lumbering strides seem laboured, to say the least of it, but in reality he covers the ground so quickly that it takes a very fast horse indeed to keep pace with him.

Before Dorothy had got half-way to the hut, she knew she was being closely pursued. She could hear the hungry brute behind her breathing hard. At length she reached the hut, but the door was shut. She threw herself against it and wrenched at the handle, which must have been put on upside down to suit some whim of the owners, for it would not turn. The bear was close upon her, so with a sob of despair she pa.s.sed on round the house. Next moment she found herself confronted with a log wall and in a species of _cul-de-sac_. Oh! the horror of that moment!

But there was a barrel lying on its side against the wall of the hut Afterwards she marvelled how she could have done it, but she sprang on to it, and, gripping the bare poles that const.i.tuted the eaves of the shanty, leapt upwards. Her breast rested on the low sod roof; another effort and she was on it. The barrel was pushed from her on springing, and, rolling out of harm's way, she realised that for her it had been a record jump. The vital question now was, could the bear follow?

She raised herself on hands and knees among the soft, wet snow, and looked down apprehensively at the enemy.

What she saw would at any other time have made her laugh heartily, but the situation was still too serious to be mirthful. There, a few paces from the hut, seated on his haunches and looking up at her with a look of angry remonstrance on his old-fas.h.i.+oned face, was Bruin. His mouth was open, his under jaw was drooping with palpable disappointment, and his small dark eyes were gleaming with an evil purpose. That he had used up all his superfluous fat in his long winter's sleep was obvious, judging by his lanky, slab-like sides. His long hair looked very bedraggled and dirty. He certainly seemed remarkably hungry, even for a bear. There was no gainsaying the fact that he was wide awake now.

Dorothy rose to her feet and glanced quickly around.

Particularly she looked up the trail in the direction taken by her father and the others, but the dark, close pines, and a bluff prevented her from seeing any distance.

She could hear nothing save the twittering of some snow-birds, and the deep breathing of Bruin, who seemed sadly out of condition. The steep sides of the valley and the dark woods close up all around and shut in that desolate little homestead. There was no hiding the truth from herself; she was very much alone, unless the bear could be regarded as company. Bruin had her all to himself, so much so, indeed, that he appeared to be taking matters leisurely. He had the afternoon ahead of him, and, after all, it was only a girl with whom he had to deal. As he watched her there was even an apologetic expression upon his face, as if he were half ashamed to be engaged in such an ungentlemanly occupation and hoped it would be understood that he was only acting thus in obedience to the imperative demands of an empty stomach.

Dorothy wondered why the bear did not at once begin to clamber up after her. As a matter of fact, bears are not much good at negotiating high jumps, particularly when their joints have been stiffening during the greater part of the winter. But they have a truly remarkable intelligence, and this particular one was thinking the matter over in quite a business-like way.

Dorothy caught sight of a long sapling projecting from the eaves. It was really a species of rafter on which the sod roof rested. She cautiously lent over, and, grasping it with her two bands, managed with some considerable exercise of force to detach it. It was about six feet long and nearly as thick as her arm, making a formidable weapon.

Bruin regarded her movements disapprovingly, and resolved to begin operations. The barrel which had helped the girl to gain the roof was naturally the first thing that attracted him. With a mocking twinkle in his dark eyes, he slouched towards it. He was in no hurry, for, being an intelligent bear, he appreciated the pleasures of antic.i.p.ation. He placed his two fore feet on it, and then, with a quick motion, jerked his c.u.mbersome hind quarters up after him.

But the bear had never seen a circus, and his education, so far as barrels were concerned, had been neglected.

The results were therefore disastrous. The barrel rolled backwards while Bruin took a header forward. Never in the days of his cubhood had he effected such a perfect somersault In fact, if it had been an intentional performance he could not have done it in better style.

It was such an unexpected and spontaneous feat that his thoughts went wandering again, and he looked at the barrel in a puzzled and aggrieved sort of way, as if he half suspected it of having played him some sort of practical joke.

In spite of the peril of her situation Dorothy could not restrain a peal of laughter. A town-bred girl would doubtless have been still shaking with terror, but this was a la.s.s o' the prairie, accustomed to danger. Besides, she saw now that to reach her would cost the bear more skill and agility than he appeared to possess.

The barrel, being in a species of hollow, rolled back and rocked itself into its former position.

The bear walked round it, sniffing and inspecting it in quite a professional manner. Then, not without a certain amount of side--also quite professional--he prepared to have another try.

He sprang more carefully this time, but he did it so as to put the momentum the other way. The result was that he rocked wildly backwards and forwards for about a minute, and managed to stay on the barrel as a novice might on a plunging horse, until the inevitable collapse came. The barrel took a wilder lurch forward than it had yet done, and Bruin dived backwards this time. He came down with such a thud, and in such an awkward position, that Dorothy made sure his neck was broken. To tell the truth, Bruin thought so himself. He actually had not the moral courage to move for a few moments, lest he should, indeed, find this to be the case. Even when he did move, he was not too sure of it, and looked the very sickest bear imaginable.

But a bear's head and neck are about the toughest things going in anatomy, so after Bruin had carefully moved his about for a little to make sure that nothing serious was the matter, he again turned his attention to the girl.

His stock of patience was by this time nearly exhausted, and he glared up at her in a peculiarly spiteful fas.h.i.+on.