Part 12 (2/2)
Ba'tiste's eyes were for lairs of grass crushed so recently that the spear leaves were even now rising; for holes in the blackup roots; for hollow logs and rotted stuht have crawled to take his afternoon siesta; for punky trees which a grisly s down the bole of poplar or cottonhere so his claws in reat pits deep in the clay banks, where soopher ran down to the depths of his burrow in sheer terror only to have old bruin co to the innermost recesses, with scattered fur left that told what had happened
Some soft oozy moss-padded lair, deep in theas if a sleeper had just risen, sets Ba'tiste's pulse hopping--ju ti mountain-cat With tread soft as the velvet paw of a panther, he steals through the cane-brake parting the reeds before each pace, brushi+ng aside softly--silently what ht an alar froht to left--froht--always on the listen!--on the listen!--for prey!--for prey!
”Oh, for sure, that Ba'tiste, he was but a fool-hunter,” as his comrades afterward said (it is always so very plain afterward); ”that Ba'tiste, he was a fool! What o step--step--into the marsh after a bear!”
But the truth was that Ba'tiste, the cunning rascal, always succeeded in co out of the marsh, out of the bush, out of the windfall, sound as a top, safe and unscratched, with a bear-skin over his shoulder, the head swinging pendant to shohat sort of fellow he hadsharp nose--he was thin--thin as a barrel all gone but de hoops--ah!--voila!--he an ugly garcon, was dat bear!”
Where the hunters found tufts of fur on the sage brush, bits of skin on the spined cactus, the others er
Ba'tiste would have it that the badger had been slain by a bear The cached carcass of fawn or doe, of course, aree
And so the shortening autu heat of a crisp noon and the noiseless chill of starry twilights found the trappers canoeing leisurely up-strea the long overland trail that led to the hunting-fields in Canada
One evening they cah cliff banks with the flats heavily wooded by poplar andBa'tiste had found signs that were hot--oh! so hot! The opher hole was so fresh that it had not yet dried This was not a region of ti coyote--the vagrant of prairie life! Oh!--no!--the coyote like other vagrants earns his living without work, by skulking in the wake of the business-like badger; and when the badger goes down in the gopher hole, Master Coyote stands nearby and gobbles up all the stray gophers that bolt to escape the invading badger[37] What had dug the hole? Ba'tiste thinks that he knows
That was on open prairie Just below the cliff is another kind of hole--a roundish pit dug between rass clawed down into it, snug and hidden and sheltered as a bird's nest If the pit is what Ba'tiste thinks, so-place He proposes that they beach the canoes and caood tiht is the tio out in the earlyMeanti-place, he will set a trap
Caular trapper what it is for the a while others skin the game and prepare supper
One hunter whittles thesticks that are to hs for a bed If fish can be got, some one has out a line The kettle hisses from the cross-bar between notched sticks above the fire, and thesends up a flavour that whets every appetite Over the upturned canoes bend a couple of ainst to-e Then with a flip-flop that tells of the other side of the flap-jacks being browned, the cook yodels in crescendo that ”Sup--per!--'s--read--ee!”
Supper over, a trap or two e; for in spite of their tawny skins, these earth-coloured fellows have closer acquaintance ater than their appearance would indicate The man-smell is as acute to the beast's nose as the rank fur-ani that an Indian who has had a long run of ill-luck does is to get a native ”sweating-bath” andriver are the red bars of the ca the s, perhaps, the bole of soh there is no wind, the poplars shi+ver with a fall of wan, faded leaves like snow-flakes on the grave of summer Red bills and whisky-jacks and lonely phoebe-birds caray thicket bounds a cottontail to jerk up on his hind legs with surprise at the ca ear, and he has bounded back to tell the news to his rabbit fa wavering <big>V</big> lines, wing geesesouthward for the season The children's hour, has a great poet called a certain time of day? Then this is the hour of the wilderness hunter, the hour when ”the Mountains of the Setting Sun” are flooded in fiery lights fro the far rolling prairie like clouds of opal at poise in mid-heaven, the hour when the caed earth like a red jewel, and the far line of the prairie fire billows against the darkening east in a tide of vereurs_ do not erect their tent; for they will sleep in the open, feet to the fire, or under the canoes, close to the great earth, into whose very fibre their beings seem to be rooted
And now is the tie notes of all they have seen in the long silent day There was the prairie chicken with a late brood of half-grown clu chicks a to the old mother's care When the hunter ca broken-winged to decoy the trapper till her children could run for shelter--when--lo!--of a sudden, the broken wing is s before he has uncased his gun! There are the stories of bear hunters like Ba'tiste sitting on the other side of the fire there, who have been caught in their own bear traps and held till they died of starvation and their bones bleached in the rusted steel
That story has such small relish for Ba'tiste that he hitches farther away froround close to theunder-tangle with his head on his hand
”For sure,” says Ba'tiste contemptuously, ”nobody doesn't need no tree to climb here! Sacre!--cry wolf!--wolf!--and for sure!--diable!--de beeg loup-garou will eat you yet!”
Down somewhere from those stars overhead drops a call silvery as a flute, clear as a piccolo--so like a mote on the far oceans of air The trappers look up with a movement that in other men would be a nervous start; for any shrill cry pierces the silence of the prairie in al of how the Blackfeet o till the gloo cliffs see warriors Onea step through the dark to his canoe when there is a dull pouncing thud For an instant the trappers thought that their couttural cry--a shout of ”Help--help--help Ba'tiste!” and thecane-brake, calling out incoherently for them to ”help--help Ba'tiste!”
In the confusion of cries and darkness, it was impossible for the other two trappers to knohat had happened Their first thought was of the Indians whose cri Their second was for their rifles--and they had both sprung over the fire where they saw the thirdin the dark A loorrying growl--and they descried the Frenche furry for with agony
”It's Ba'tiste! It's a bear!” shouted the thirdblows on its head
Man and bear were an indistinguishable struggling mass Should they shoot in the half-dark? Then the Frenchman uttered the scream of one in death-throes: ”Shoot!--shoot!--shoot quick! She's strikingmy face----”
And before the words had died, sharp flashes of light cleft the dark--the great beast rolled over with a coughing growl, and the trappers raised their coround