Part 6 (2/2)

They made their way around the end of the boulders, holding their guns in readiness, and headed for a small coulee that promised an easy ascent of the first slope. At the mouth of this both paused again. Its bottom was covered with sand, and in this sand were the tracks of another bear. Bruce dropped on his knees.

”It's another grizzly,” said Langdon.

”No, it ain't; it's a black,” said Bruce. ”Jimmy, can't I ever knock into yo'r head the difference between a black an' a grizzly track? This is the hind foot, an' the heel is round. If it was a grizzly it would be pointed.

An' it's too broad an' clubby f'r a grizzly, an' the claws are too long f'r the length of the foot. It's a black as plain as the nose on yo'r face!”

”And going our way,” said Langdon. ”Come on!” Two hundred yards up the coulee the bear had climbed out on the slope. Langdon and Bruce followed.

In the thick gra.s.s and hard shale of the first crest of the slope the tracks were quickly lost, but the hunters were not much interested in these tracks now. From the height at which they were travelling they had a splendid view below them.

Not once did Bruce take his eyes from the creek bottom. He knew that it was down there they would find the grizzly, and he was interested in nothing else just at present. Langdon, on the other hand, was interested in everything that might be living or moving about them; every ma.s.s of rock and thicket of thorn held possibilities for him, and his eyes were questing the higher ridges and the peaks as well as their immediate trail. It was because of this that he saw something which made him suddenly grip his companion's arm and pull him down beside him on the ground.

”Look!” he whispered, stretching out an arm.

From his kneeling posture Bruce stared. His eyes fairly popped in amazement. Not more than thirty feet above them was a big rock shaped like a dry-goods box, and protruding from behind the farther side of this rock was the rear half of a bear. It was a black bear, its glossy coat s.h.i.+ning in the sunlight. For a full half minute Bruce continued to stare. Then he grinned.

”Asleep--dead asleep! Jimmy--you want to see some fun?”

He put down his gun and drew out his long hunting knife. He chuckled softly as he felt of its keen point.

”If you never saw a bear run yo'r goin' to see one run now, Jimmy! You stay here!”

He began crawling slowly and quietly up the slope toward the rock, while Langdon held his breath in antic.i.p.ation of what was about to happen. Twice Bruce looked back, and he was grinning broadly. There was undoubtedly going to be a very much astonished bear racing for the tops of the Rocky Mountains in another moment or two, and between this thought and the picture of Bruce's long lank figure snaking its way upward foot by foot the humour of the situation fell upon Langdon. Finally Bruce reached the rock.

The long knife-blade gleamed in the sun; then it shot forward and a half inch of steel buried itself in the bear's rump. What followed in the next thirty seconds Langdon would never forget. The bear made no movement. Bruce jabbed again. Still there was no movement, and at the second thrust Bruce remained as motionless as the rock against which he was crouching, and his mouth was wide open as he stared down at Langdon.

”Now what the devil do you think of that?” he said, and rose slowly to his feet. ”He ain't asleep--he's dead!”

Langdon ran up to him, and they went around the end of the rock. Bruce still held the knife in his hand and there was an odd expression in his face--a look that put troubled furrows between his eyes as he stood for a moment without speaking.

”I never see anything like that before,” he said, slowly slipping his knife in its sheath. ”It's a she-bear, an' she had cubs--pretty young cubs, too, from the looks o' her.'

”She was after a whistler, and undermined the rock,” added Langdon.

”Crushed to death, eh, Bruce?”

Bruce nodded.

”I never see anything like it before,” he repeated. ”I've wondered why they didn't get killed by diggin' under the rocks--but I never see it. Wonder where the cubs are? Poor little devils!”

He was on his knees examining the dead mother's teats.

”She didn't have more'n two--mebby one,” he said, rising. ”About three months old.”

”And they'll starve?”

”If there was only one he probably will. The little cuss had so much milk he didn't have to forage for himself. Cubs is a good deal like babies--you can wean 'em early or you can ha'f grow 'em on pap. An' this is what comes of runnin' off an' leavin' your babies alone,” moralized Bruce. ”If you ever git married, Jimmy, don't you let yo'r wife do it. Sometimes th'

babies burn up or break their necks!”

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