Part 20 (1/2)
He didn't waste even a ss for her to waken He seized her shoulders and shook her gently
Instantly her eyes opened Her full consciousness returned to her with a rush She was not scratched, not even shocked by the fall, and she reached up for Bill's hands And instantly, with a laugh on her lips, she sprang to her feet
”You killed him?” she asked
It was the first breath she had wasted, and no e gray form in the drifts to know her answer Bill, because he was a woodsman first, last, and always, slipped additional shells into Harold's rifle; then walked over to the bear He gazed down at its fil eyes
”Bear's all dead,” he answered cheerfully And Virginia's heart raced and thrilled, and a delicious exaltation swept through her, when she glanced down at this woods and brown, there was not a treers
The both of them whirled in real and superlative astonish thee voice,--one that they scarcely re before
But they saw at once that the speaker was Harold He had cootten his existence
XIX
In the weeks they had been together, Bill had always been careful never to try to show Harold in a bad light It was simply an expression of the inherent decency of the hted her troth to hieard to him He knew it meant only heartbreak for her to love and wed a h of human nature to realize that love often lives when respect is dead, and no possible good could co up the unworthiness that he beheld in Harold He had never tried to enation now, his voice holly cheerful and friendly when he answered
”We're quite all right, thanks,” he said ”The only casualty was the bear A little snow on our clothes, but it will brush off And by the way----”
He paused, and for all his even tones, Harold had a sickening and ghastly fear of the sober query in Bill's eyes ”Why did you give un and tell ood deal of luck there'd been a sht it only just that, in spite of Virginia's presence, Harold explain this grave oinia was entitled to an explanation too, and Harold knew, froht have been arrogant and insulting to Bill, but he cared enough for Virginia's respect to wish to justify himself
He studied their faces; it was plain that they did not accuse hihts, of evil intent in handing Bill an alun But by the stern code of the North sins of carelessness are no less dareat deal to answer for
”And by the way,” Bill went on, as he waited for his reply, ”I don't reht explain that, too”
”I didn't shoot because I couldn't,” Harold replied earnestly ”At first you were between inia was It all happened so quickly that there was nothing I could do I can't iot to reload the rifle A ht I had Thank God that it didn't turn out any worse than it did”
Bill nodded; the girl's face showed unspeakable relief She was glad that this lover of hers had logical and acceptable reasons for his oathered about the gray grizzled form in the snow
”Does this--help our food probleency--no Virginia, you ought to try to cut that foreleg muscle” He lifted one of the front feet of the bear in his hands ”You'd see what it would be like to try to bite it He's an old, tough brute--worse eating than a wolf Strong as , we'd cut off one of those hams in a minute; but we can wait a while at least If we don't pick up so the day, I'll hike over to et the supplies I've left over there There's a s back a backload, anyway” Then his voice changed, and he looked earnestly into Virginia's eyes ”But you won't want to hunt any ot--what a shock this experience would be to you”
She setting used to shocks I feel a little shaky--but it doesn't a I want to climb up and look at the caribou trail, at least”
”Sure enough--if you feel you can stand it It's only a hundred yards or so up the hill I'd like to take old Bruin's hide, but I don't see hoe could handle it I believe we'd better leave him with all his clothes on, in the snow And Heaven knows I'd like to find out what the old boy was doing out--at a ti”
They continued on up the creek until the grade of the hill was less, then clambered slowly up Fifty yards up the slope they encountered the old caribou trail, but none of these wilderness creatures had been along in recent days They followed it a short distance, however, back in the direction they had come and above the scene of their battle with the bear
”No profit here,” Bill said at last ”We ”
They turned, and in an instant more came back to their own tracks And suddenly Bill stopped and stared at them in dumb amazement
He looked so astonished, so inexpressibly baffled, that for a inia's heart leaped in her throat Yet the tracks contained no e for her
”What's the ht hihty astonishi+ng at that We've just walked in a two-hundred-yard circle, up the creek to where we cli the hill in this direction, and then down And we haven't crossed that grizzly's tracks anywhere”