Part 12 (1/2)
Being a true woman and a true housewife, it was perhaps inevitable that she should think first, and, after due consideration given to everything else, including pitchforks and cayenne pepper, that she should think last and finally, of the unli water To have it actually boiling, at the critical rie to have it hot enough for her purpose She had observed that this bear which was after the pig had learned the way into the pen She felt sure that, having found from experience that loud noises did not produce bodily injuries, he would again co, and this time with more confidence than ever
On this point, thanks to her ignorance of bears in general, she was right Most bears would have been discouraged But this bear in particular had learned that when reeable to bears, they succeeded only too well He had realized clearly that Mrs
Gareeable to hi her intentions But she had not succeeded Ergo, she was not, as he had almost feared, a ht fully deter petticoats, or explosions, should divert him from his purpose and his pork He came early; but not, as it chanced, too early for Mrs
Gammit, who seemed somehow to have divined his plans and so taken ti, as we have already noted, was in a corner of the barn, and under one end of the loft Immediately above the point where the bear would have to cliet into the pen, Mrs Gammit re of the loft Beside this opening, at an early hour, she had ensconced herself in secure ambuscade, with three pails of the hottest possible hot water close beside her The pails ell swathed in blankets, quilts, and hay, to keep up the temperature of their contents And she had also a pitchfork ”layin' handy,” ith to push the enemy down in case he should resent her attack and clirow sleepy, or even i, disturbed and puzzled by the unwonted goings-on above his head, had refused to go to bed He andering restlessly up and down the pen, when, through the cracks, he saw an awful black shadow darken the stable door He lost not a second, but lifted his voice at once in one of those ear-piercing appeals which had noice proved themselves so effective
The bear paused but for a moment, to cast his solitary eye over the situation Mrs Gammit fairly held her breath Then, alht beneath her, and cla's squeals redoubled, electrifying her to action She snatched a steas, and dashed it down upon the vaguely heaving fore, confused, terrific uproar, fro stood out thin and pathetic
Without waiting to see what she had accomplished, Mrs Gammit snatched up the second bucket, and leaned forward to deliver a second stroke
Through a cloud of stea wildly for the wall of the pen, clawing frantically in his eagerness to cliiven hiive hi far forward, she launched her terrible e hind-quarters just as they went over the wall But at the sanant yell she plunged doard into the pen
It was like Mrs Gammit, however, that even in this dark moment her luck should serve her She landed squarely on the back of the pig
This broke her fall, and, strangely enough, did not break the pig The latter, quite frenzied by the accumulation of horrors heaped upon him, bounced frantically from beneath her indiscreet petticoats, and dashed himself from one side of the pen to the other with a violence that threatened to wreck both pig and pen
Somewhat breathless, but proudly conscious that she had won a splendid victory, Mrs Gaether The bear had vanished She eyed with a
”Poor dear!” she muttered presently, ”some o' the bilin' water it over it bi all clawed an' et up by a bear, I reckon!”
Mrs Gammit now felt satisfied that this particular bear would trouble her no h hopes that his experience with hot water would serve as a lesson to all the other bears hoined herself involved The sequel fulfilled her ut from his scalds and with all his preconceived ideas about women overthrown, betook hiood deal of his hair ca time he had a rather poor opinion of himself
When, for over a week, there had been no more raids upon barn or chicken-roost, and no arden, Mrs Gammit knew that her victory had been final, and she felt so elated that she was even able to enjoy her continuing diet of cold turkey Then, one pleasantwind un home to Joe Barren
”What luck did ye hev, Mrs Gammit?” inquired the woodsman with interest
”I settled theun as done it It was bilin' water I've found ye kin always depend on bilin' water!”
”I hope the gun acted right by you, however!” said the woodsman
Mrs Gammit's voice took on a tone of reserve
”Well, Mr Barren, I thank ye kindly for the loan of the weepon Ye _o for to trust that gun, or ye'll live to regret it _It don't hit what it's aimed at_”
The Blackwater Pot
The lesson of fear was one which Henderson learned late He learned it well, however, when the tigishly, reluctantly, is followed one another round and round the circuit of the great stone pot The circling water within the pot was smooth and deep and black, but streaked with foaash in the rocky ri current of the river, which rushed on, quivering and seething, to plunge with a roar into the terrific cauldron of the falls Out of that thunderous cauldron, filled with huge tras and the shriek of tortured torrents, rose a white curtain of spray, which every now and then swayed upward and drenched the green birches which grew about the riht at the passing current and sucked it into the sloirls of Blackwater Pot, was not a dozen feet from the lip of the falls
Henderson sat at the foot of a ragged white birch which leaned frohted, while he watched the logs with a half-fascinated stare Outside, in the river, he saw the down the white rapids to their awful plunge When a log ca for a second or two in doubt Itcurtain of spray and vanish into the horror of the cauldron Or, at the lastit into the sullen wheeling procession within the pot All that it gained here, however, was a terrible kind of respite, a breathing-space of agonized suspense As it circled around, and caht continue on another eventless revolution, or itto the whim of the eddy, be cast forth once more, irretrievably, into the clutch of the awful sluice Sos, after a pause in what seele, would crowd each other out and go over the falls together And sometiain and again But always, at the cleft in the ri, terrible panic
It was this recurring moment that seeination, so that he forgot to smoke He had looked into the Blackwater before, but never when there were any logs in the pot Moreover, on this particular ht eariness For a little short of three days he had been at the utmost tension of body, brain, and nerve, in hot but wary pursuit of a desperado whom it was his duty, as deputy-sheriff of his county, to capture and bring to justice
This outlaw, a French half-breed, known through the length and breadth of the wild backwoods county as ”Red Pichot,” was the last but one--and accounted the erous--of a band which Henderson had undertaken to break up Henderson had been deputy for two years, and owed his appointment primarily to his pre-eminent fitness for this very task Unacquainted with fear, he was at the sah the backwoods counties for his subtle woodcraft, his sleepless endurance, and his cunning
It o years now since he had set his hand to the business One of the gang had been hanged Tere in the penitentiary, on life sentence Henderson had justified his appointross-witted tool, ”Bug” Mitchell, went unhanged, he felt himself on probation, if not shaang, he honoured with a personal hatred that held a streak of rivalry For Pichot, though a beast for cruelty and treachery, and with the murder of a wo to Henderson's ideas, in a different category from a mere killer of e none could question Sohland blood in his mixed veins had set a mop of hot red hair above his black, implacable eyes and cruel, dark face It had touched his villainies, too, with an iination which made them the more atrocious And Henderson's hate for him as a man was mixed with respect for the adversary worthy of his powers
Reaching the falls, Henderson had been forced to acknowledge that, once again, Pichot had outwitted him on the trail Satisfied that his quarry was by this tiled ravines on the other side of Two Mountains, he dismissed the two tired river-o on down the river to Greensville and wait for him It was his plan to hunt alone for a couple of days in the hope of catching his adversary off guard He had an ally, unsuspected and invaluable, in a long-legged, half-wild youngster of a girl, who lived alone with her father in a clearing about a arded Henderson with a childlike hero-worshi+p This shy little savage, whom all the Settlee of the wilderness and the trails which rivalled even Henderson's accoreat store,” as he would have put it, by her friendshi+p He would go down presently to the clearing and ask some questions of the child But first he wanted to do a bit of thinking