CHAPTER XXIII THE MONARCH OF THE SOLITUDES.

DEERFOOT, Mul-tal-la and the Shelton boys were encamped in the heart of the Rockies. The Blackfeet visitors had departed two days before and were well on their way to their own villages. The air was keen and bracing, and the sun that had been obscured now shone from a brilliant sky.

The halt was made at noon to give the horses a needed rest, for they had done considerable hard climbing. Even the peerless Whirlwind showed the effects of the unusual task. It being understood that the pause was to be for several hours, a general break-up of the company followed. The Blackfoot and the Shawanoe strolled off by themselves, and George and Victor Shelton took another direction, with a caution not to wander too far and to return before sunset.

The boys soon found themselves in a region where progress was difficult. They were not following any trail, and were forced at times to clamber over boulders and other obstructions, or to flank them; to descend into deep depressions and to climb ridges at whose summits they were obliged to sit down for a breathing spell. Such hard work made them thirsty, and when they came to one of the numerous tumbling brooks, whose waters were as clear as crystal and as cold as the snow and ice from which they sprang, they refreshed themselves with a deep draught and sat down for a rest.

“Whew!” sighed Victor, removing his cap and mopping his moist forehead; “there isn’t as much fun in this as I thought. I wouldn’t mind the walking and climbing if a fellow didn’t get tired.”

“And if you didn’t get tired you wouldn’t enjoy a rest like this.

“Do you remember,” he continued, “how Simon Kenton used to say at our house that no man could know what a good night’s sleep is unless he sat up one or two nights beforehand. I suppose there’s something in that, though we don’t have to try it on ourselves. I know that water doesn’t taste one-half so good unless you are as thirsty as you can be. It seems to me, Victor, that it’s time we bagged some game.

“We haven’t bagged much,” George added; “Mul-tal-la got an elk yesterday; Deerfoot brought down an antelope; I shot a turkey, and you came pretty near hitting a buffalo that was several yards off.”

“Came pretty near hitting him!” repeated Victor, with fine scorn. “I hit him fairly, and you know it, but these buffaloes have hard heads, like some persons I know.”

“Then you shouldn’t aim at their heads. Other people don’t, and it’s time you learned better.”

“I don’t know any relative of mine that is too old to learn a good many things,” replied Victor, without a spark of ill-nature.

“That sounds as if you mean me. I’ll own up that Deerfoot and I are liable to make mistakes now and then, but I don’t quite think either of us would run from a wounded antelope and keep up a yelling that could be heard a mile off.”

“It is sometimes a wise thing to run; you see it tempts your game to follow and brings him within range.”

“Where is the need of that when he must have been in range at the time you wounded him?”

“But couldn’t he turn and make off in another direction and get beyond reach before you could load again? I tell you, George, there was science in what I did. I advise you to try the same trick when you have a chance, and then”——

A peculiar hog-like grunt caused both to look behind them. The sight that met their gaze was enough to terrify a veteran hunter. Hardly a hundred feet away stood the most gigantic grizzly bear of which they had ever dreamed. They had listened spellbound to the story of Mul-tal-la, but believed that the panic he underwent at the time of his encounter with one of those western terrors caused him to exaggerate his account, though it must have been a fearful brute that could have wrought the havoc he did.

A Western Monarch.

This bear had his hind feet on the ground and his front ones on a boulder, so that his massive back sloped downward from his head, and he was looking at the boys as if speculating as to what species they belonged. His size was tremendous. To the lads he seemed to be three or four times the bulk of any of his kind they had met in the forests of Ohio or Kentucky. It is not improbable that the estimate of the brothers was right. You know that the grizzly bear (which the early explorers referred to as a white bear) is now, as he has been from time immemorial, the monarch of the western wilds. So prodigious are his size and strength that he is absolutely without fear.

And he is justified in this self-confidence. One stroke of that mighty paw, whose claws are often six inches in length, will break the back of a horse or tear a man to shreds, and enveloping his victim in those beam-like front legs, he will crush him to pulp without putting forth more than a tithe of his power. A score of bullets have been pumped into that immense carcass without causing any apparent harm. The Rocky Mountain grizzly saves the hunter the trouble of attacking him. It is the bear himself who starts things moving and keeps them going at a lively rate. The advice of the most experienced ranger of the wilds is that if a man is alone and without an inaccessible perch from which to shoot, he should not disturb the grizzly. This advice is equally good for two persons, and would not be inappropriate for three in most circumstances.

It may be doubted whether the entire West at the time of which I am writing contained a more colossal grizzly bear than the one upon which George and Victor Shelton gazed when they turned their heads. His bulk was so immense that they recognized him on the instant as the dreaded brute of which they had heard more than one terrifying story.

Why he did not advance upon the lads at once is not easy to explain. It probably was because the whim did not come to him, or he may have looked upon the couple as too insignificant for notice. It is not unlikely that curiosity had something to do with it, for no doubt they were the first examples of the Caucasian race that he had seen, though he must have met Indians and may have crushed an indefinite number to death.

The strange spectacle was presented for the next few minutes of the boys staring at the monster, while he stared back at them, no one moving or making any sound. George and Victor were literally paralyzed for the time and unable to stir or speak.

Victor was the first to rally. Forgetting the warnings of Deerfoot and Mul-tal-la, he sprang to his feet, faced wholly around, and brought his gun to his shoulder.

“What a splendid shot!” he exclaimed. “See me tumble him over!”

But George remembered the words of their dusky friends, and, knowing the fatal folly of what Victor was about to do, protested.

“Don’t you do it! He’ll kill us both!”

In his fright Victor was cool. He took deliberate aim, and while the words were in the mouth of his brother pressed the trigger. The report and act threw George into an irrestrainable panic, and bounding to his feet he dashed off at the utmost speed. Across gullies, over and around rocks, threshing through undergrowth, he sped, not daring to look around and hardly conscious of what he was doing. He forgot the peril of Victor in his panic until he had run several hundred yards, when, realizing what he was doing, he abruptly stopped and looked back.

He had gone so far that he saw neither the bear nor Victor, and he began picking his way to the spot, shivering with dread, and expecting each moment to come upon the mangled remains of his brother.

Meanwhile Victor had a remarkable experience. Had he not been so impulsive by nature, and had he been given a few moments for reflection, he would have let the brute alone; but, as I have shown, he fired straight at him. More than that, he hit him. In accordance with the almost invariable rule in such circumstances the grizzly should have swept down upon him like a cyclone. Instead of that he slowly swung his front around, dropped to his natural posture on the ground, and began lumbering away.

Incredible as it may seem, he probably was not aware that he had served as a target for an American youth. He must have been conscious of the landing of the bullet somewhere about his anatomy, but the matter was too trifling to disturb him. The annoyance from mosquitoes was more serious, especially when they attacked his eyes. In Alaska these pests often blind the bears by their persistent assaults, and the miserable brutes wander aimlessly around until they starve to death.

Even Victor Shelton was puzzled by the action of the grizzly. It would not have been so strange to him had the quadruped rolled over and died, for that would have indicated that a lucky shot had been made; but that he should turn and make off was more than the youth could understand. He would have believed the bear had been frightened had he not recalled the accounts of Mul-tal-la, which showed the impossibility of such a thing.

In one respect Victor displayed wisdom. Without stirring from the spot he carefully reloaded his gun, keeping a lookout all the time for the return of the monster. He had caught sight of the mountainous, shaggy bulk as it swung through the undergrowth, which was trampled down as if it were so much grass, and then disappeared. Would he come back?

While the lad was debating the question he heard the sound of some one approaching from the other direction. Turning, his eyes met those of his white-faced brother, who seemed to find it hard to believe that he saw Victor alive and unharmed.

“Where’s the bear?” gasped George, when he could master his emotions.

“Why didn’t you wait and see me shoot him?” asked Victor loftily.

“It can’t be you killed him.”

“He may live a few minutes longer, but I guess he’s gone off to die by himself. You know wild animals don’t like to have spectators when they give their last kick.”

“It can’t be,” said George as if to himself; “you couldn’t have hit him.”

“Then what made him leave so suddenly? Tell me that.”

“I don’t know; I never saw one of them before; but why didn’t he attack us? This bear is a bigger one than Mul-tal-la ever met, and it couldn’t be he was afraid of us.”

“Not of us—of course not, for only one of us held his ground, and I don’t think his name is George Shelton, but he saw I was here; he took one good squint at me, and things looked so squally he decided to leave.”

The complacency and self-pride of Victor were warranted, provided they rested upon a sure basis; that would soon be known. Few living woodmen have ever driven off a grizzly bear by a single shot, and it seems beyond the range of possibility for the feat to be performed by a boy.

Victor peered in all directions, and seeing nothing of the monster, turned and proceeded to “rub it in” with his brother.

“Let me see, George, you were saying something a little while ago about a fellow that you saw run away from the charge of an antelope.”

George knew what was coming and rallied to “repel boarders.”

“Yes; I saw a great hulking youngster do that very thing. You will find it hard to believe anyone could show such cowardice, but Mul-tal-la was with me, and he’ll tell you it is true.”

“Do you think that the chap, who no doubt was trying to lure the antelope to his destruction, made better time than you did when you deserted me at sight of this big bear?”

“There may not have been much difference in the speed of the two, but you see the case is different. One boy ran from an animal that is as harmless as a rabbit, while the other fled from a beast that would have sent a half-dozen veterans flying, even though they had loaded rifles in their hands.”

“But I stood my ground.”

“Because you didn’t know any better. You were too scared to run.”

“But not too scared to shoot and hit the game. Folks generally say that the fellow who runs away is frightened and not the one who keeps his place and sends a bullet right into the face of the danger. What do you think of it, George?”

“I have already told you what I think. Let us leave the question to Mul-tal-la and Deerfoot to settle when we go back to camp.”

But Victor, unaware that the Shawanoe had heard the story long before from the Blackfoot, was unwilling to have it brought to his knowledge. He knew he cut a sorry figure when fleeing from the frantic antelope, and he did not like to hear references to it. He would prefer to appear ridiculous in the eyes of any person in the world rather than in those of the young Shawanoe. He saw his chance and used it.

“I’ll agree to say nothing about this if you don’t talk about antelopes when Deerfoot is around. Are you willing?”

Before George Shelton could refuse or give assent the conversation was broken in upon in the most startling manner.