Part 12 (1/2)
[Illustration: They dodge the co thered mouths with the butt of his weapon; and the fore fro over their dead fellows, they dodge the coreat brute is reaching for the forward bound; but ashadow When the s his arm and draws back to strike, this , makes a quick snap at the bend of his knees
Then the trapper's feet give below him The wolf has bitten the knee sinews to the bone The pack leap up, and thethaw came, to carry away the heavy snow that fell over the northland that night, the Indians travelling to their surounds found the skeleton of a man Around it were the bones of three dead wolves; and farther up the hill were the bleaching remains of a fourth[35]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 35: A death almost similar to that on the shores of Hudson Bay occurred in the forests of the Boundary, west of Lake Superior, a few years ago In this case eight wolves were found round the body of the dead trapper, and eight holes were ee-belt--which tells its own story]
CHAPTER XII
BA'TISTE, THE BEAR HUNTER
The city uides in a field where the hunted have been on the run froets a very tame idea of the natural bear in its natural state
Bears that have had the fear of e repeaters lose confidence in the prowess of an aggressive onset against invisible foes The city end of how harmless bears have become In fact, he doesn't believe a wild animal ever attacks unless it is attacked He doubts whether the bear would go on its life-long career of rapine and death, if hunger did not compel it, or if repeated assault and battery from other animals did not teach the poor bear the art of self-defence
Grisly old trappers co down to the frontier towns of the Western States once a year for provisions, or hanging round the forts of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada for the su is done in a field where human presence is still so rare that it is unknown and the bear treats s froareat spinners of yarns--”liars” the city nais, who squats on his heels round the fur company forts on Peace River, carries ocular evidence in the artificial ridge of a deformed nose that the bear which he sleas a real one with an epicurean relish for that part of Indian anatomy which the Indian considers to be the most choice bit of a h the forests of Idaho to follow up the track of a lost brave brought back proof of an actual bear; for he found a dead s with his skull crushed in like an eggshell by so that had risen swift and silent fro brave one quick terrible blow And little blind Ba'tiste, wizened and old, who spent the last twenty years of his life weaving grasscurious little wooden animals for the children of the chief factor, could convince you that the bears he slew in his young days were very real bears, altogether different froh fairy books
That is, he could convince you if he would; for he usually sat weaving and weaving at the grasses--weaving bitter thoughts into the woof of his mat--without a word Round his white helmet, such as British soldiers wear in hot lands, he always hung a heavy thick linen thing like the frill of a sun-bonnet, co over the face as well as the neck--”to keep de sun off,” he would mumble out if you asked him why More than that of the mysterious frill worn on dark days as well as sunny, he would never vouch unless soers of bear-hunting Then the grass strands would tremble with excitement and the little French hunter's body would quiver and he would begin pouring forth a jumble, half habitant half Indian with aand pointing at his hidden face and bidding you look what the bear had done to hi the thick frill
It was somewhere between the tributary waters that flow north to the Saskatchewan and the rivers that start near the Saskatchewan to flow south to the Missouri Ba'tiste and the three trappers ith him did not knohich side of the boundary they were on By slow travel, stopping one day to trap beaver, pausing on the way to forage fortheir canoes where they needed the overland _portage_, they were three weeks north of the American fur post on the banks of the Missouri The hunters were travelling light-handed That is, they were carrying only a little salt and tea and tobacco For the rest, they were depending on their muskets
Game had not been plentiful
Between the prairie and ”the Mountains of the Setting Sun”--as the Indians call the Rockies--a long line of tortuous, snaky red crawled sinuously over the crests of the foothills; and all game--bird and beast--will shun a prairie fire There was no wind It was the dead hazy cal in the purplish smoke like a blood-red shi+eld all day and the serpent line of flaainst the deep blue horizon all night, days filled with the crisp shts as clear and cold as the echo of a bell On a windless plain there is no danger fro or distancing the waving tide of fire against a far sky; and the four trappers, running short of rations, decided to try to flank the fire coa away froh some dexterity of natural endowment, unconsciously becons where another sees only deer For Ba'tiste, the page of nature spelled _B-E-A-R_! Fifteen bear in a winter is a wonderfully good season's work for any trapper Ba'tiste's record for one lucky winter was fifty-four
After that he was known as the bear hunter Such a reputation affects keen hunters differently The Indian grows cautious alrew rash He would folloounded grisly to cover He would afterward laugh at the episode as a joke if the wounded brute had treed hi dat was not de prairie dat ta down the pelt of his foe The other trappers with Indian blood in their veins h, but they shook their heads when his back was turned
Flanking the fire by soullies that cut the foothills like trenches, the hunters began to find the signs they had been seeking For Ba'tiste, the
Where some summer rain pool had dried almost to a soft mud hole, the other trappers saw little cleft foot-ers that spelled out the visit of some member of the weasel family, and broad splay-hoof iiantfoot-th of a man's fore-arm with padded ball-like pressures as of monster toes The French hunter would at once exareat foot had pointed Were there other irass tell any tales of what had passed thatapparently ai his uncased rifle carefully that the sunlight should not glint fro up a foothill where perhaps wild plu with frost ripeness Ba'tiste did not stand full height at the top of the hill He dropped face down, took off his hat, or scarlet ”safety” handkerchief, and peered warily over the crest of the hill If he went on over into the next valley, the other uessed he smelt bear” If he came back, they knew he had been on a cold scent that had faded indistinguishably as the grasses thinned
Southern slopes of prairie and foothill are often les of a raspberry patch Here Ba'tiste read s--stories of many bears, of fa alone Great slabs of stone had been clawed up by s that cling to the cold dark between stone and earth had been gobbled up by soer In the trenched ravines crossed by the trappers lay many a hidden forest of cottonwood or poplar orHere was refuge, indeed, for the wandering creatures of the treeless prairie that rolled away from the tops of the cliffs
Many secrets could be read froht look for the fresh nibbled alder bush where a busy beaver had been laying up store for winter, or detect the blink of a russet ear a a deer, or wonder what flesh-eater had caught the poor jack rabbit just outside his shelter of thorny brush
The hawk soaring and dropping--lilting and falling and lifting again-- dead” to induce the bird to swoop down so that the vampire beast could suck the hawk's blood, or that the haatching for an unguarded e doith his talons in a poor ”fool-hen's” feathers
These things ht interest the others They did not interest Ba'tiste