The worst was over. Below the falls the gorge widened out slowly and the current grew more sluggish. For a quarter of an hour they glided on silently without need of their paddles, except to keep the craft in the center of the stream.
“Whew! I hope we don’t run into any more rapids,” Sandy breathed more freely.
Dick emphatically agreed. “Next time,” said he, “I’ll prefer facing the bullets, I think. Gee, if the fellows back in the U. S. A. knew what we’d just gone through they’d have a fit.”
“They’ll never believe it,” Sandy opined.
“We’ll make ’em believe it if we live to tell it,” vowed Dick, pulling extra hard on his paddle and making the canoe leap forward like a live thing. “But, to change the subject, I guess we left the enemy behind this time.”
“I’ll say so,” Sandy came back, “but two duckings in two days isn’t fair. Where can I stop off and get dry?”
“I think we’d better keep moving till noon,” Dick advised. “Then we can kill two birds with one stone—eat and dry off too.”
Sandy saw the wisdom of this and fell silent, bending his energies to the paddle. They made good time until about noon, when they espied a sandy shoal ahead of them that promised plenty of dry firewood for a campfire. They drew in, beached the canoe and made camp. An hour later, dry again and in good spirits, they pushed off and went on down the river.
“Seems as if I smell burning wood in the air,” Dick remarked a couple of miles further on.
“I do too,” Sandy replied, “——must be a forest fire somewhere near.”
“Hope it’s not too near,” said Dick, “a forest fire would hold us up a while even if we are on the river. I’ve heard my father tell about the fires they used to have in Oregon. They’re no joke.”
Sandy was about to add what he knew of forest fires when they both sighted another canoe toiling upstream. At that distance they could not at first distinguish whether there was more than one in the canoe. However, they held any stranger they might meet a possible enemy, since Martin MacLean had told them how far-reaching was the hand of Bear Henderson, and so they prepared for hostility.
Slowly the two canoes drew together. Sandy quietly picked up his rifle, while Dick continued paddling. They could now see there was but one man in the canoe.
“Hello there,” Dick hailed.
The stranger waved a hand, ceased paddling, except to hold his canoe against the current, and waited for the boys to glide up. He was a tall man, with long, dark hair and a leathery face.
“Where you goin’?” he asked as the canoe prows touched.
“Mackenzie’s Landing,” Dick replied, seeing nothing hostile in the other’s demeanor, and seeing no reason why he should not reveal his destination, if not his errand.
“I got my grub stole back river a piece,” the stranger said, pointing over his shoulder with one thumb. “Have you fellers got plenty of grub?”
“Sure,” Dick answered. “Want to eat with us? Our grub’s a little wet, but it swallows all right.”
“I’d be obliged,” the stranger returned, “but mebbe you wasn’t figgerin’ to stop jest now.”
“We just had a snack,” Dick admitted, “but if you’re hungry we’ll split what we have.”
“I jest need enough to get me to Fort du Lac.”
“Fort du Lac!” Dick and Sandy chorused. “We just came from there!”
“So? Wal, it’ll be nigh three days canoein’ up river, an’ I’ll need grub. No time to hunt. You fellers didn’t happen to run across an Injun with a heap of scars on his face?” the man asked, searching their faces.
“A scar faced Indian!” Sandy exclaimed. “Why——”
“Well, yes,” Dick broke in with a warning look at his chum. “We noticed a fellow of that description at the fort. Didn’t think much about him,” Dick was cautious.
“You fellers needn’t be afraid to tell me all you know,” the stranger had noticed Dick’s reserve and his interruption of Sandy. “I ain’t publishin’ my business but my name’s Slade.”
“Not Malemute Slade, the scout for the mounted!” Dick exclaimed, for the man’s reputation as a scout was a fable in the north country, and many times he had heard it spoken with awe and admiration.
“There’s them call me Malemute Slade,” admitted the tall man cooly, “but what was that about this here scar faced Indian?”
Dick then related the queer experiences at the fort.
The canoes were permitted to drift on down the river while they talked. Malemute Slade listened attentively.
“His name’s Many-Scar Jackson,” Slade told them when they had finished with their story. “He’s wanted for murder down the river a piece. But that’s nothin’ to this Henderson breakin’ loose. That’s news to me, an’ it’ll be news for the mounted maybe. I’ve heard rumors f’r a long time, but didn’t think much of it. A tough customer, Henderson. You fellers wants to watch y’r step. If I seen any of the gang that was foller’n you I’ll square up with ’em.”
In the keen eyes and the lean jaw of the far-famed Malemute Slade the boys saw that which made them confident that Slade could “square up” with most any one or any number.
“Tell the factor you saw us and that we’re all right—only got a ducking when we shot Little Moose Rapids,” Dick said.
Malemute Slade’s eyes lighted up. He looked with new respect at Dick’s wiry figure. “So you fellers shot the Little Moose an’ come through alive—wal, I swan. You must have toted a dozen rabbit’s feet.”
“Not a one,” Dick replied modestly, while Sandy grinned with pride.
“Y’r apt to have somethin’ worse on your hands afore you get to Mackenzie’s,” Malemute surprised them. “There’s a forest fire whoopin’ it up back a piece, an’ it’ll maybe hit the river afore you pass it. There’s a bit of smoke in the air now. Hey!”
Dick and Sandy started up and looked where Slade pointed.
Nearly four hundred yards down the river a stag had come down to drink and was standing half in and half out of the water. The canoes were slowly drifting down upon it.
“You fellers want a fresh haunch o’ venison f’r tonight?” queried Malemute.
“You bet!” Dick and Sandy chimed, “but the deer’s seen us and we can’t get close enough for a shot.”
“Reckon I can drop him from here,” Malemute Slade replied cooly.
“What!” Dick exclaimed incredulously.
Malemute’s only reply was slowly to raise his 45.70 lever action rifle to his shoulder. Dick and Sandy watched breathlessly. Motionless as a statue, the big man took aim before his rifle crashed. As the echo of the shot sounded in the silent forest, the stag leaped upward and fell into the river with a soundless splash.
“Now you fellers split your grub with me, an’ I’ll be goin’ on. If I had time I’d paddle down an’ cut a hunk off that deer. But I’ll have to be moochin’.”
Malemute Slade thought nothing of the wonderful exhibition of markmanship he had just made, and Dick and Sandy were awed to silence as they undid their packs and transferred half their food into the scout’s canoe.
Malemute Slade paid them in king’s coin for the provisions.
“You’ll probably see me again afore this Henderson business is over, but it’s hard tellin’,” was Malemute’s parting prophecy. “Au revoir.”
“Au revoir,” the boys sang out the French “so long,” and started on to where the stag had fallen.
Late that evening, making camp at a point they judged somewhere within fifty miles of Mackenzie’s Landing, the smoke of the forest fire was so strong it made them cough. They had paddled a little way up a small creek for the night, thinking to make themselves more secure from a possible night attack from Henderson’s men, who seemed so determined they should not get to the mounted police.
“I’m afraid we’re in for it,” Dick shook his head concernedly.
“It sure feels as if we were close to a fire,” Sandy agreed dubiously.
“Well, we’ll need all the sleep we can get at any rate,” Dick concluded, as he rolled into his blankets, and Sandy prepared for the first watch.
That night Dick slept fitfully. The place where they had camped was in a deep coulee, unwooded except for a few clumps of red willow. Straight above them, at the top of an almost perpendicular wall of red shale and crumbling sandstone, was a dark fringe, which marked the beginning of a mighty forest of spruce and jack pine. Moaning in his sleep, Dick sat up and commenced rubbing his eyes. Then he paused to stare in open-mouthed wonder.
The coulee was full of smoke. It floated around them in a ever thickening cloud, while above, plainly visible in the glare of the conflagration, sweeping down from the north, he beheld a thick, dense column of smoke, which seemed to span the coulee like a black bridge.
Ten feet away, Sandy, on sentinel duty, coughed and dug at his eyes. In alarm, Dick threw aside his blankets and crawled hurriedly forward to consult with his chum.
“Sandy!” he shouted, “the fire is all around us. We’ll die like rats in a trap if we stay here. Why didn’t you awaken me before? Let’s hurry back to the river and our canoe.”
“Can’t,” said Sandy laconically, “I’ve been watching that. There’s a belt of fire between us and the river. We should never have camped so far away from it.”
“Well, you know we thought we’d be safer from Henderson’s men up here,” Dick replied.
The boys could hear plainly the howling of the wind and the distant, thunderous roar of the fire. Accustomed as he had become to danger since his sojourn in the north, Dick could not overcome a sudden feeling of fear and apprehension.
“Where will we go?” shivered Sandy. “It seems to be all around us.”
“We’ve got to go through it somehow,” Dick answered, not altogether sure, himself, what ought to be done. “It’s dangerous to remain here any longer. What do you think is best?”
Sandy, eyes running water, scratched his head in perplexity.
“If we could get to the river,” he said, “we’d be safe. I don’t see any other way.”
A few moments later, two disconsolate figures clambered up the side of the coulee and struck off hurriedly at right angles with the fire. With a catch in his throat, Dick perceived the huge walls of flames bearing down upon them. For several miles, at least, they were cut off from the river. Even the sky glowed dully like a large orange disk through a thick blanket of smoke.
“What’s that!” exclaimed Sandy, suddenly starting back.
Something had shot past them through the underbrush—a heavy body, hurtling along in mute terror. Almost immediately came other bodies, small and large—rabbits scurrying almost between their legs; deer, jumping past in a wild stampede; bear and moose, crashing their way forward in a cumbersome, heart-stirring panic, as they ran from the fire.
“If they’re afraid, it’s about time we were,” Sandy declared grimly, through set teeth. “If this smoke gets any worse we’ll be suffocated in another ten minutes. My throat feels as if I had been drinking liquid fire for a week.”
Twenty feet away a flying ember settled down on the dry grass and immediately burst into flames. With the ever increasing velocity of the wind, similar patches of fire sprang up around them on every side.
“I’m afraid,” said Dick, fighting bravely against mounting despair, “that we’ll never make it. I never saw such a wind.”
Sandy did not reply. With handkerchiefs pressed to their noses and mouths, the boys struggled forward for another quarter of a mile.
By this time the heat had become terrific. Dick’s face felt as if it had been washed in a bucket of lye. Sandy’s cheeks were streaked with tears, not tears of grief, but tears of misery from smoke-tortured, bloodshot eyes.
“No use,” choked Sandy, plunging down a short embankment with Dick at his heels. “I’m about ready to quit. You see,” he explained, struggling with the lump in his throat, “I’m getting dizzier and dizzier every minute. This heat and smoke is getting me.”
Dick put out his hand with an assurance he did not feel, and patted his chum on the shoulder.
“Buck up,” Dick encouraged, “we’ll get out of this somehow. I tell you, Sandy, we’ve got to do it. Maybe this——”
Dick never finished what he was about to say. His foot slipped, and with a startled exclamation, he pitched forward, completely upsetting Sandy. In a moment both boys had rolled and slid down a steep bank. It seemed there was no end to the fall, and Dick’s heart almost failed him as he thought of what fate might meet them below. Perhaps they were rolling toward the brink of a cliff hundreds of feet high, perhaps they would fall into some rock cluttered canyon, or again, they might be drowned in some deep lake at the bottom of the bank.
Then they reached the bottom with a jarring impact that shook the breath from their bodies. When they recovered enough to look each other over, Dick was sitting upright, astride of Sandy, who lay in a crumpled, groaning heap under him. Dick heard, or thought he heard, the trickle of running water. His right foot felt pleasantly cool. When he put out his hand to investigate his fingers encountered water.
Sandy was half submerged in a tiny pool, and was sinking fast, before Dick could pull him back to safety. Dazed from the fall, Sandy sputtered a moment, then inquired excitedly:
“Have we got to the bottom?”
“I guess so,” replied Dick. “At any rate there seems to be a sort of creek running along here. Are you all right, Sandy?”
“Well, if I’m not, I soon will be,” answered Sandy, more cheerfully. “Wait till I get a drink of this water. Boy, I’m dry. Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
By way of answer, Dick pointed up to the wide belt of fire. “It’s closer than it was before. We’re protected down here from the heat and smoke, but that won’t last long. In two hours this place will be as hot as a stove. Our only chance is to keep on moving.”
“I hate to leave this water,” said Sandy, gulping large mouthfuls of it.
“I don’t intend leaving the water,” Dick assured him. “It’s just occurred to me that our best plan will be to follow this little creek. It’s probably fed from a spring and will eventually run either into a lake or river. Once we get into more water we’ll be pretty safe.”
Sandy thought Dick was right, and a few minutes later, greatly refreshed, they set out again, following the creek downstream.
Two miles further on the creek ran into a larger stream, and a little later as they hurried around a curve, Sandy, who was in the lead, gave vent to an exclamation of despair.
“Look at that!” he shouted. “The fire has cut in ahead of us.”
Sandy was right. Not more than a quarter mile downstream, the fire was raging on both sides of the creek, and even as they looked, a large jack pine, flaming to the top of its highest branches, swayed suddenly in the wind and went crashing forward in a shower of sparks and burning embers.
Sick at heart, the two young adventurers stood for a short time, scarcely daring to think of their predicament. Apparently there was little chance of escape, the main body of the fire behind them, another fire sweeping ahead.
“We’ve got to get through,” Dick muttered. “We’ll have to take a chance, Sandy. The fire ahead hasn’t been burning long and it’s not as far through it—maybe not more than a hundred yards. Somehow, I feel certain that this creek will take us straight on to the Big Smokey where we left the canoe.”
Sandy’s face brightened a little. “I believe you’re right, Dick. If a burning tree or branch doesn’t fall on us, we can make it. We’ll have to wade right down through the center of the stream. If it gets too hot we can dive under the water. I’m going to take off my shirt, soak it in water and breathe with it around my head.”
“A good idea,” approved Dick. “I’ll do it too.”
A half hour later, two boys emerged, wet and blackened, from a cloud of smoke and flame and advanced painfully along the creek to a point where it emptied into the Big Smokey river. Behind them thundered the terrible conflagration, getting closer every moment. Moose, deer and caribou stood trembling at the river’s edge, or struck boldly out into the stream. The boys turned north and followed the river for a mile before they discovered the object they sought. It was daylight now, though the smoke made it difficult to see far. Yet the light, graceful Peterboro canoe, loaded with supplies, did not miss their searching eyes. As they pushed it into the river and climbed in, Dick Kent gave voice to a fervent exclamation.
“We made it, Sandy!” he exulted, as he dipped his paddle once more into the bosom of the Big Smokey.
Sandy was about to share Dick’s rejoicing, when the movements of a huge brown bear, which had splashed into the water behind them, attracted his attention. The bear was swimming straight for the canoe.
“Shove out quick!” cried Sandy suddenly, but too late.
The brown bear, blinded by smoke, and thinking the canoe some log to cling to, clawed at the rim of the frail craft and pulled down. The canoe went over, spilling its contents into the river, while the bear, finding the craft unstable, swam on out into the river.
The plunge into the river revived both Dick and Sandy. Gasping, they came up for air, only to breathe the choking smoke and gases of the burning forest. They knew that the canoe was upside down and that their packs were in the bottom of the river. The bear was nowhere to be seen.
“Are you all right, Sandy?” called Dick, hoarsely.
“You bet,” Sandy replied, a bit faintly.
Among the burning brands sizzling in the water, and the flying sparks, they struggled with the canoe. In a few minutes they had righted it, though it was half full of water. The paddles, they could see, had gone with the packs.
“Look for a paddle!” shouted Dick. “They must be floating around somewhere.”
“There! I see one,” Sandy dived off as he spoke, and swam back quickly with a paddle in one hand.
But look as they did they could not locate the other paddle.
“We can’t look any longer. We’ll have to change off with one paddle,” Dick called a little later.
Dick paddling, they started on. The heat still was stifling, but they felt that the air was growing cooler. The wind seemed in their faces, which would tend to bear the fire back along the river. Wild animals of all kinds still could be seen in the water, wallowing along the shore or swimming the stream. But they had no more dangerous encounters with the frightened beasts.
Two hours of paddling, shifting the paddle back and forth between them as soon as one grew tired, and they came to a comparatively clear stretch of water. Here the fire was deeper in the forest, and had not eaten out to the bank yet. In greedy gasps, Dick and Sandy drew in the gusts of cool, pure air that were wafted over them.
“Look back, Sandy,” Dick called.
The whole sky was a mass of red flames behind them, and an ocean of smoke was rolling ceaselessly upward.
“Mackenzie’s Landing can’t be much further,” Sandy said when they had looked their last upon the great fire.
“No, we ought to make it by night. We’ll have to make it or camp without grub or blankets. I prefer going on,” Dick stated.
“So do I,” Sandy rejoined.
Some distance further on, as they rounded a huge bend in the stream, they could not suppress a cheer. In the distance they could see the shoulder of a high, barren bluff which was the ten-mile landmark on the trip to Mackenzie’s Landing.
It was late in the afternoon when in the distance they at last viewed the stockade and roofs of Malcolm Mackenzie’s trading post. Blackened and disheveled, nearly exhausted, they guided their canoe to the pier, where three half-breeds were watching them curiously. The half-breeds helped them secure their canoe, and listened without comment to some of their story of the eventful journey.
“Malcolm Mackenzie, he sick,” one of the half-breeds told them. “No can go. Him burned bad when fight with fire.”
“Did you hear that?” Dick turned to Sandy.
“Yes—just our luck. Now what?” Sandy returned, a little disheartened, as the half-breeds led the way into the stockade.
“We can talk to Mr. Mackenzie, can’t we?” Dick asked one of the men, as they entered the post.
“Yah, I guess.”
Presently, they were ushered into a room smelling of liniment and arnica. On a bunk lay Malcolm Mackenzie, his head and one arm swathed in bandages. Evidently he was suffering considerably from serious burns. He turned his head as the boys came in.
“Bear Henderson has captured Fort Good Faith,” Dick blurted out. “My friend’s uncle has been imprisoned. Mr. MacLean sent us to you. He said you would lead us to the mounted police post at Fort Dunwoody.”
“I’ve feared this,” Malcolm Mackenzie’s eyes narrowed, “but you see how it is with me, boys. I can’t travel. Got some bad burns while fighting that forest fire. But I can send an Indian who knows the trail.” He turned to one of the half-breeds, who was standing behind Dick and Sandy. “Send in Little John Toma,” he commanded.
A little later Dick and Sandy saw a young Indian enter. He was handsome in a dark, inscrutable way, and though not very tall, was powerfully built. He stood respectfully at attention, seeming more intelligent than many of his kind.
“Toma,” Mackenzie spoke, “I want you to lead these young men to Fort Dunwoody as fast as you can. Travel light. You ought to make it in four days if everything goes right.” He turned back to the boys. “Did MacLean say anything about a cache of grub along the way?”
“Yes,” Dick reached into his pocket and drew out the map the trader had drawn indicating the position of the cache of food on the trail to Fort Dunwoody.
Mackenzie took the map, glanced at it and handed it to Toma. “It’s on Limping Dog Creek,” said Mackenzie, “just where that gorge you follow intersects the stream. You know the place.” To Dick and Sandy: “Introduce yourselves and get acquainted. Toma will get everything ready for you to go on. Take a rest as soon as you eat. Oh, Calico, Calico!” he called to some one.
As the boys and Little John Toma passed out, a large, waddling Indian woman came in. They heard Mackenzie instructing her to get a meal ready for his visitors before the bear-skin curtain dropped behind them and they found themselves in the spacious living room of the post.
Dick and Sandy awkwardly introduced themselves to the young Indian who was to be their guide.
“Glad to meet,” Toma surprised them by saying, his teeth flashing whitely in a smile.
Dick and Sandy quickly felt that they were going to like Toma.
“I’ll bet he’s the son of a chief,” Sandy said to Dick, when the young Indian had gone, and they were busy at the wash bench, scrubbing off some of the smoke and ashes of the forest fire.
The boys ate heartily of the food the Indian woman placed before them on the rough board table. As soon as they were through they were shown to a comfortable bunk behind moose-hide curtains. Scarcely had they lay down when they fell into sound slumber.
It seemed to Dick Kent that he had only been asleep a moment when a hand, gently shaking his shoulder, awakened him. He looked up into the smiling face of Toma, the young guide.
“Time to go,” said Toma. “You wake up other fella.”
As the curtains fell, and Toma disappeared, Dick turned and shook Sandy.
An hour later they bid goodbye to Malcolm Mackenzie and wished him speedy recovery from his burns. The canoe lay ready packed with provisions at the landing when they arrived there. Toma was starting to push off. Dick and Sandy hopped in, and Toma sprang lightly into the bow.
“Now for Fort Dunwoody,” Dick breathed a sigh of relief.
“If I wasn’t an optimist,” Sandy added, “I’d say we aren’t there yet by a long shot.”
Toma silently sculled the craft into the center of the river, and they were once more floating down the stream. The boys marveled at Toma’s deftness with the paddle, though they themselves were experts. The young Indian seemed able to make the canoe fly with his quick, powerful strokes.
A half hour of paddling and the roofs of Mackenzie’s Landing had disappeared in the haze of the morning, and once more the walls of the silent spruce forest closed in on either side of them.
Late that night they camped some twenty miles from the trading post, in a little clearing at the river’s edge. Toma mentioned “bear sign,” and so they hung up their flour and bacon on a tree bough for fear a bear might get it.
Sandy kept first watch while Toma and Dick slept.
It was a dark night. Only the stars were out, and when the fire died down Sandy scarcely could see a dozen paces from the camp. Occasionally he glanced into the shadows, listening to the mysterious sounds of the forest, and starting up at each crackle of a twig or rustle of undergrowth.
Sandy wondered if the men on their trail had been thrown off, and imagined what he would do if they would suddenly attack. As he thought of the dangers threatening Dick and him, his hand tightened on his rifle.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, the time he was to call Toma for the second watch, when Sandy became conscious of some sinister presence. Before he really saw or heard anything, he shivered and looked fearfully about into the gloom of the forest.
A scratching and grunting noise attracted his attention to the tree where they had hung up the flour and bacon. It seemed he could hear the shuffle of heavy feet and the wheeze of giant lungs as he listened intently.
“I won’t call Dick and Toma,” thought Sandy. “It may be only my imagination. I’ll go see what it is.”
Heart beating wildly, Sandy commenced to creep toward the point he had heard the noises. He could see nothing in the dark, yet as he strained his eyes it seemed to him that one portion of the blackness was blacker than the rest.
Suddenly, he heard the crashing of a splintered tree bough. A low, vibrating growl followed, and Sandy dropped upon his stomach. There came a slapping, thumping sound, then an angry growling and tussling. The dark blot lurched downward. Sandy raised his rifle and blazed away at the shape. A rambling roar rose in the night.
“Dick! Toma!” cried Sandy, as he turned about and fled, hearing behind him the rush of a heavy body pursuing him.
Toma and Dick were already on their feet when Sandy rushed toward them out of the gloom.
“It’s a bear, a giant bear!” cried Sandy. “Run! I’ve wounded him!”
The angry roar behind Sandy was all that was needed for Dick and Toma to take to their heels with alacrity.
“Get up tree, get up tree!” Toma called to them.
Faster than they ever before had climbed a tree, Dick and Sandy shinned up one in the dark. The bear charged beneath them in the underbrush. The huge beast wheeled on finding his prey had taken to the trees and circled the trunk which supported Dick and Sandy. Toma’s calm voice came through the gloom from a near-by tree:
“Him grizzly all right,” Toma told them. “You stay in tree. I get down to rifle pretty quick.”
“You surely must have wounded the bear,” Dick whispered to Sandy. “I’ve heard they won’t attack unless they’re wounded.”
“I don’t know what I did,” Sandy came back breathlessly. “I just blazed away and ran. Believe me, I don’t want to go down there again while that monster is wandering around looking for me. He’d chew us up in about two bites and a half.”
Dick knew that Sandy’s caution bump was working again, and he smiled in the dark. He did not intend to let Toma go down after the bear alone. Yet he believed the young Indian would protest if he revealed his intentions.
“Got your rifle?” Dick called to Toma, not intimating his resolution.
“I got gun,” Toma called back.
“I wish I’d thought to bring mine along,” Dick muttered, “but then it takes an Indian to shin up a tree with a heavy rifle in his hand I suppose. Anyway I have my knife.”
“Don’t go down, Dick,” whispered Sandy, as the bear crashed about in the brush below them.
“Nonsense, Sandy, I’ve got as much chance as Toma. We can’t let that bear wreck our camp. That’s what he’s up to.”
“Then I’ll go down too,” Sandy stubbornly decided.
They could not hear Toma’s movements with the bear making so much noise, but Dick suspected the guide already had slipped down from his tree and was stalking the wounded grizzly, perhaps close enough to get in a fatal shot.
Presently, they could hear the bear make off into the gloom toward the campfire. When Dick and Sandy dropped down out of the tree, the bear seemed to be on the other side of the campfire, clawing and mouthing over their dunnage.
“You better stay up in the tree,” Dick said.
“Not on your tintype,” Sandy snapped. “If you go, I go.”
“Well, then, we’ve got to get our guns,” said Dick. “Mine’s right where I got out of my blankets.”
“Seems to me I dropped mine just before I started climbing the tree,” Sandy was feeling around in the dark. “Yes, here it is,” was his triumphant call.
Toma seemingly had vanished. Since his last words, they had heard nothing more from him. Dick judged the guide was stalking the bear from some other direction. At any moment he expected to hear the report of the Indian’s rifle, and see the flash of it in the gloom.
Sandy alone armed, save for Dick’s hunting knife, the boys began a stealthy advance toward the camp where they could hear the bear slashing and groveling about, evidently in some pain, for they were sure now that Sandy’s shot had taken effect.
The coals of the campfire shed a faint glow. As the boys drew nearer, on hands and knees, they could see the bulk of the grizzly outlined. He seemed a mammoth of his kind, and indeed was a fearful beast to meet in the forest.
“I’ll bet he’s wrecked our camp outfit,” Dick muttered. “Careful, Sandy, don’t get too close. Let’s wait till he gets away from the fire a little further, then I can get my rifle.”
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when Toma’s rifle crashed in the dark on the left, and Dick and Sandy saw a streak of flame, and heard the roar of the bear, plainly hard hit. The grizzly rose upon his hind legs and turned toward the spot he believed his enemy was hidden. Then Sandy leveled his rifle and fired, drawing bead as best he could just under the huge beast’s forelegs.
At this second shot, the bear seemed undecided just which way to charge. He stopped, his head turning from side to side, growling horribly, not hit hard enough to fall.
Toma shot again, then Sandy. The grizzly dropped to all fours, and began clawing at his breast. Toma shot again from another position. The bear rose up again with a roar of pain and rage and started for Dick and Sandy, who turned to flee. Then the big beast, without any apparent reason whatsoever, wheeled about and made off into the forest in the opposite direction.
“He’s hit hard!” cried Dick, hurrying forward.
Toma came out of the gloom like a shadow. “He go off die,” said the Indian. “Be careful he no come back. I go see where he go.” Toma disappeared after cautioning the boys to stay where they were until he returned.
The minutes passed slowly while Dick and Sandy waited the return of Toma. Finally Dick grew impatient and was about to go on to the campfire for his rifle, when Toma appeared again, as if he had risen out of the earth.
“She all right,” Toma reported. “Him keep going. Him die somewhere.”
Relieved, Dick and Sandy approached the campfire. Toma already was heaping on more wood. As the flames leaped upward, and the light chased away some of the surrounding shadows, Dick and Sandy breathed freely once more. However, sleep was far from them after the narrow escape from being clawed by the wounded bear. They ventured about to see what damage the big grizzly had effected.
They found Dick’s and Toma’s blankets torn to shreds. The coffee pot was crushed flat and the sugar sack broken open, its contents scattered.
Dick hurried to the bough where they had hung the flour and bacon. “Hey, look here—Sandy, Toma!”
They joined Dick. The bough had been broken down; the flour was scattered about as if the sack had exploded; the bacon was gone. Searching about in the gloom they found hunks of chewed rind among the pine needles. Only one small chunk of bacon was left, and this they preserved in one of their knapsacks.
“Him no hungry,” Toma grunted, “him play. Him chew bacon up, spit him out.”
“Well, he did us plenty of damage all right,” Dick said ruefully.
“Looks like we were in for a hungry spell,” Sandy added, resignedly.
“Humph! We have bear steak for breakfast,” Toma exclaimed significantly.
“That’s what I call justice,” Dick laughed.
All three went back to the campfire then and squatted around the crackling flames. The excitement had loosened Toma’s tongue, it seemed, and he began telling stories of other bears he had known, and whom his father had known. Dick and Sandy listened with rapt interest to the simple tales of the young Indian.
Almost the balance of the night passed with Toma’s droning voice relating thrilling adventures among the tribes in the far north. Toward dawn Sandy turned in for an hour or so of rest, but Toma and Dick remained awake.
The sun had scarcely topped the distant forest skyline when Dick and Toma awakened Sandy, and all three gathered up what they could of the wreckage remaining of their provisions.
“Now we gettum bear steak,” Toma said.
In single file they followed the gliding figure of the guide, as he set off on the trail of the grizzly.
“See that track!” Dick exclaimed presently, pointing with his rifle at a spot of soft leaf-mold.
“It’s a bear track, all right,” conceded Sandy, “—and look! There’s blood on that bush.”
“We sure hit him a lot of times—I mean you and Toma,” Dick corrected. He felt disappointed that he had not actually been in on the killing of the bear, since he had had no rifle. But the thrill of trailing a wounded grizzly made him forget.
Toma seemed to follow the trail as if by instinct. Where Sandy and Dick could see no sign whatever, Toma went unerringly forward, always with that gliding, noiseless, pigeon-toed pace, that seemed tireless, though it was kept up with an ease and speed that made Dick and Sandy run.
For a half mile they wound among the trees, beginning to come upon spots where the bear had dropped down to rest. At these points the blood was drying in large clots. Finally, approaching a fallen tree, they came upon the grizzly, stone dead!
Dick and Sandy were about to cheer, yet the actual sight of the bear made them a little sad. The great monarch of the forest never again would proudly tread the forest aisles. Yet the boys felt a certain satisfaction in having won in a battle with such a powerful foe.
Toma immediately began skinning one haunch of the great bear. “Him old and tough,” grunted Toma, “but we cook um long time. That make um tender.”
Dick laughed. “The old boy will make stringy eating.”
“I wish we could take his hide,” Sandy sighed.
“It sure would knock the eyes out of the fellows back home,” Dick said.
“No time to skin,” Toma interrupted. “Hide too heavy carry. Mister Mackenzie say mus’ travel light.”
“Yes, it’s impossible for us to have the old fellow’s hide, but that’s no reason why we can’t have his scalp.” Suiting his action to his words, Dick drew his sharp hunting knife and stooped over the head of the wilderness king. With Sandy’s help they took the old grizzly’s scalp, ears and all, as a trophy.
“It’s yours and Toma’s,” Dick smiled, when they had finished. He held the scalp out to Sandy.
Sandy’s eyes lightened. “Let Toma have the scalp. I’ll take the claws.”
Dick’s hunting knife once more came into play. The bear’s claws measured as long as five inches, and Sandy was exceedingly proud as he at last pushed them into a side pocket of his leather coat.
Toma was waiting when they had finished. The guide had his knapsack filled with the tenderest steaks he could cut.
At a jog trot they set out for the river and their campsite, and soon they were grilling bear steaks over the fire.
When they broke camp they had provisions for two scanty meals, including some of the bear steaks which they saved from breakfast. The canoe packed, they once more set out down the river.
“We make um grub cache tomorrow,” Toma encouraged them. “Get um plenty grub there.”
Late that afternoon, without mishap they reached a point where Toma said they must abandon their canoe and go on by land, since the river swung off in another direction. They carefully hid their canoe in some underbrush along with two others left by a party that had recently gone on ahead of them, and started out on foot.
Dick and Sandy were very tired long before Toma showed signs of slowing up, but they gamely stuck to the pace without complaint.
They were angling down the side of a long ravine, toward a spring, which Toma muttered would be a good place to camp, when of a sudden, the guide stopped dead.
“Hide quick!” Toma whispered, with a significant gesture of one sinewy brown hand.
Dick and Sandy crouched.
“Think um bad fellas ahead,” Toma explained. “You stay here. I go ahead; look um over.”
Dick and Sandy were glad to sink down and rest their weary legs. But the warning in Toma’s voice did not escape them. They were keyed to sharp watchfulness as Toma dropped to his hands and knees and disappeared silently among the bushes.