A NIGHTMARE ADVENTURE.By G. Bennett.
By G. Bennett.
The Arctic Red River, a stream which has its source on the east side of the Rocky Mountains and flows in a series of rapids and treacherous falls into the Mackenzie, has tempted many a band of adventurous spirits to brave its difficulties in the hope of finding that elusive "mother-lode" which every miner is convinced exists to supply the rich alluvial deposits that have made the fame of the Klondike fields.
A little band of three had struggled about two hundred miles up the stream in the face of apparently insurmountable difficulties, having tounload their boat and "portage" the whole of their year's provisions over rocky, precipitous banks, which were often densely wooded, or tow her up rapids, under the fierce Canadian sun, when the strain on the rope must not be relaxed for a single moment lest the bows of the boat should be wrenched round by the current and the towers jerked backwards into the boiling waters.
They camped at last on a part of the bank that was low and grassy and clear of the eternal spruce trees for a short distance. Here they built a rough shack, laid up the boat, and took a spell of prospecting. Into their camp on the second day limped a tattered, woe-begone, helpless-looking individual, a Swede, who explained in broken English, almost on the verge of tears, that he and his friends, seeing the business-like way in which the others had prepared to meet the difficulties of the river, had come to the conclusion that they were old hands, and followed at a safe distance, hoping to be able to keep modestly in the background till those in front had made a find, and then, as the Yankee of the party put it, they were ready to "whirl in and get the pickings of a right soft job." However, they had been forced to come into undue prominence because their boat had become hopelessly jammed between two rocks in a rapid and they could not move her without help. He ended his tale of woe and stood looking from one to the other of the three disgusted men who faced him.
"Well, of all the derndest cheek!" said the Yankee. "To explain so nicely how they planned to jump us, and then expect help so's they can do it!"
"We must sho'ly lend a ha-and," drawled the Southerner.
"Oh, yes," said the Englishman, the youngest of the party. "Of course we must help the poor beggars."
It was arranged at last that Bantling and Fox, the two Americans, should go to the rescue, while Rogers, the Englishman, kept camp.
They had dinner, and then, with the Swede as guide, started off down the river bank to the rapids.
Left alone, Rogers washed up the dinner-things, put up some grub, got his blanket and a rifle, and set off into the scrub. The day before, when getting wood, he had come upon the track of a moose, and was determined to try for a shot at him, picturing to himself the delight of the other two when they returned, to find a store of fresh meat. He followed the trail through a thicket of ground alder and willow, stumbling into muskegs and bursting through tangled undergrowth. It was frightfully hot, for this was the Canadian summer, and when he at last reached a small clearing, through which ran a little stream from a "sienega" or small lake higher up, he thankfully camped there for the night.
The next morning, having had some breakfast, he found the trail of the moose clear and straight before him, and decided to return to the shack for more food before setting out on a hunt that might last days. So, leaving his blanket and rifle behind, he set out. It was much easier going back, as he had forced a fairly clear path and knew the way. He was surprised how quickly he found himself once more at the edge of the clearing round the camp, and was just about to cross the open to the shack, when a curious, exasperated, whining growl made him draw quickly back into the shadow of the trees, wishing, too late, that he had brought his rifle with him. At the foot of one of the slim pines upon which they had built the platform for their "cache" stood an immense "cinnamon" bear, nearly as large as a fair-sized bull, stretching his enormous fore-legs as far as possible above his head in a vain endeavour to reach the dainties he could smell above him. But though he could reach twelve good feet, the "cache" was up fifteen, and the trees that supported it were young and slim, so that, when he tried to get a grip to climb, his fore-paws overlapped; and no bear can climb a tree unless it is bigger than the circle of his arm, so that he can grip it with his claws.
If he had not been in such an awkward predicament, Rogers would have been immensely tickled at the antics of the big brown beast. He stretched himself upon tip-toe in his efforts to reach the platform, giving little jumps, for all the world like a small boy in a jam cupboard. Then he backed slowly away, staring at the unattainable with grunts and whines, shaking his great heavy head from side to side.
Next he squatted on his haunches, as if thinking deeply; then made a sudden rush at one of the trees and, clasping it, shook it viciously, but finding that of no avail lost his temper completely, and gave it an angry slap with his heavy paw, tearing off a great strip of bark.
Then he turned his back as if disgusted and, ambling to a sasketoon bush, took the branches between his paws and pulled off the berries, which are like bilberries, with his mouth, as daintily as a girl eating raspberries.
But the stores upon the platform drew him once more. He tried each tree in turn for a grip, scoring great grooves with his claws, and rocking stiffly on all four feet in sullen anger at his failure. Finally he started on a reconnoitring tour round the "cache," which brought himnear the tree behind which Rogers crouched, weaponless save for a pocket-knife.
To the man's horror the bear stood suddenly still, and, throwing up his head, sniffed suspiciously, looking round him meanwhile. Then, with a curious twitch, he tilted the end of his great nose up and back, thus lifting the upper lip clear of the great white fangs—an unpleasant and terrifying trick he shares in common with the "huskie" dog.
The perspiration streamed from every pore of the man behind the tree, and with some vague idea of selling his life as dearly as possible he was beginning to fumble stealthily for his pocket-knife, when, to his inexpressible relief, the bear swung round in his tracks and trotted back to the "cache."
"TO THE MAN'S HORROR THE BEAR STOOD SUDDENLY STILL, AND, THROWING UP HIS HEAD, SNIFFED SUSPICIOUSLY."
"TO THE MAN'S HORROR THE BEAR STOOD SUDDENLY STILL, AND, THROWING UP HIS HEAD, SNIFFED SUSPICIOUSLY."
Here he found an empty beef tin, which he eagerly seized upon, tucking it securely into the crook of one arm, while he investigated inside with the other paw. Holding it between both paws, he licked the inside, his long, red tongue worming into every crevice. Before finally discarding it, he held it up before him on one paw, gravely considering it.
The effect being so ludicrously like a woman taking in the points of a new bonnet, Rogers would have found it difficult not to laugh, had not the bear at that moment ungratefully smashed the tin flat with his paw and, getting purposefully to his feet, started off once more towards Rogers's sheltering tree.
The strain was beginning to tell, and the man could have shrieked aloud for very terror. The sweat poured down his face, blinding him, and he dared not lift a hand to wipe it away for fear of making some tell-tale sound. On came the bear at a curious jog-trot, his heavy head wagging to the motion, saliva dripping from his jaws.
He came within twenty feet of the tree; then, as if deliberately playing with his victim, once more swung round and went back to the "cache." He made no more futile attempts to reach the platform, but, squatting on his haunches at the foot of one of the trees, appeared to sink into a profound meditation upon the difficulties of the situation.
There they were, the bear and the man, each crouching against a tree, each mind busily scheming how to obtain the unobtainable—the man his rifle, and the bear the stores.
Suddenly Rogers realized that he was hungry, and smiled grimly as he saw that this was another point of similarity between them; the bear was also very hungry.
The day was wearing on, and the clouds ofmosquitoes that always come with the sunset found in Rogers a victim powerless to resist. The first cloud sounded the glad news in the shrill trumpeting buzz that has no counterpart in sound, and clouds more came hurrying gladly to the attack.
He was just beginning to think that if he did not die of bear he would of mosquito, and that on the whole the bear might be the lesser evil, when to his delight he heard, faint in the distance, the voices of the returning rescue party.
The bear heard them too, and with many grunts and backward looks at the "cache" rolled off into the scrub.
It was now perfectly safe for Rogers to cross the open to the shack, but so shaken were his nerves that he could not have left the shelter of the tree for all the gold in Canada.
He waited till he could see the figures of the returning men moving in the scrub, and then sent forth a long hail.
"Boys! Oh, boys! Come quick and bring a gun!"
A figure halted, listened, then started at a run towards him, slipping cartridges into a Winchester as he came. It was Fox, the Southerner, and as he caught sight of Rogers his natural ironical speech slipped from him.
"Why, sonny," he said, "you are sho'ly playing touchwood."
And Rogers realized with something of a shock in what a limp, nerveless manner he was clinging to that friendly pine. He straightened himself up with a shaky laugh.
"No," he said, "it's been puss-in-the-corner, with the biggest cinnamon I have ever seen. He went off there to the right when he heard you coming. For Heaven's sake, try for a shot at him."
But Fox was already off through the scrub, murmuring to himself as he hurried, "Puss in-the-corner! My sakes! An' whatever ha-ad the young fool done with his gun?"
Rogers crossed over to the shack, where he found Bantling anxious to hear the trouble, but casting a concerned and hungry eye round in search of the supper that should have been awaiting them, and was not. However, a fire of dry pine-knots was soon lit, a frying-pan put on with cold pork and beans, tea made, and they exchanged accounts of adventures as they ate.
It seemed that Fox and Bantling had been led by the Swede about two miles down the river bank, over very bad ground full of muskegs, which are patches of slimy bog and water. When they reached the scene of the catastrophe, they found three men calmly sitting round a fire they had built on the bank, smoking their pipes and staring at their boat, which they had left forlornly wedged between two rocks, not far out from the bank, without even attempting to unload her. It was a queer-looking craft, like an enormous punt, with a great square sail, heaped untidily with a mixed pile of stores without any attempt at balance. The wonder was that they had managed to get so far.
It was a typical case of incompetence expecting to succeed in a country that will only consent to accept the best that every man has to give. Men start off to venture up the unknown reaches of these Arctic rivers without the slightest knowledge of what is before them. They will vaguely announce that the only essential is "grit," and deem such things as a knowledge of carpentry and shipbuilding and a smattering of geology entirely superfluous.
Such a party were these four men, all their boasted grit taken clean out of them, by hardship, sitting down before their stranded boat, trading on the unwritten law of the wild that each man must help his brother.
Bantling and Fox set them to work unloading, which they did with much grumbling; then yoked them into the tow-lines and set them to haul, while they stood up to their waists in water levering up the boat with spruce poles. When she at last floated it was with several seams badly sprung, which meant she had to be beached and caulked.
Having seen to this, and feeling they had done enough, the two Americans started back, having been away nearly two days.
Bantling had just finished the account of their labours, and he and Rogers had had supper and been back to the other clearing to fetch the latter's blanket and rifle, when Fox strode disgustedly up to the fire.
"Get him?" he repeated scornfully, in reply to their eager inquiries. "Never got a sight of him. If you hadn't been so unmistakably scared limp, Rogers, I should think you'd been pulling my leg."
Rogers, in proof of good faith, recounted his harrowing experience once more.
"But you never left your gun behind along with your blanket?" demanded Fox.
"Well," said Rogers, hesitatingly, "you see, it was so hot, and I was only just coming back to see everything was all right and get some grub. It seemed so useless to bring it up here just to lug it back."
"An' you air supposed to know the country!" was the Southerner's comment upon these excuses, delivered in tones of deepest scorn.
For the rest of the evening, smoking round their glowing fire, the three men raked over theirmemories in search of queer experiences with which to cap the events of the day.
They turned in at last about ten o'clock. Fox and Bantling had bunks on either side of the shack beyond the stove. Rogers's was across the end, opposite them. He was just slipping into that moment of exquisite rest before sleep comes when it is positive pain to be roused, when a drawling voice said:—
"Oh, sonny, next time you go out walkin' in this little ol' country don't use rifles to prop trees with; it's quite likely to come expensive. An' don't get dreamin' of bears—if you can help it," he added, with a chuckle.
A disgusted grunt was the only answer, as Rogers dived still deeper under his blankets. "Bang!" Bantling awoke with a start and felt for his revolver, with a vague idea of Indians. "Bang!" Something fell with a crash and a rattle. "It's the stove-pipe," thought Bantling. "Bang!" And he heard the thud of a bullet entering wood.
The Yankee collected his scattered wits and lit a candle. By its light he discovered the Southerner sitting up in bed, his usually calm, lean, brown face working with excitement, blazing wildly in every direction.
Rogers had bolted from his bunk and was crouching in the farthest corner. A large flake of wood chipped from a log above him had fallen on his pillow, and lay there to show what had awakened him to the dangers of the situation. The sheet-iron stove-pipe which carried off the smoke through the roof hung limply in two, a shot having undermined the strength of the joint at the elbow, and, as Bantling was taking in all this, a tiny looking-glass that one of them had hung on the wall fell in a tinkling shower of splinters from another shot, while Fox muttered wildly:—
"Mind that bear! Don't let him get away on you. I've hit him once in the shoulder."
To be shut up in a shack fourteen feet by ten with a man afflicted by nightmare in the form of imaginary bears to be shot is not an enviable situation, and for Rogers it was an extremely dangerous one, as Fox was shooting straight at him. Bantling slipped from his bunk and, striding across the hut, seized the dreamer's wrist in a paralyzing grip. With the touch Fox's eyes, which had been wide open all the time, lost their unseeing stare. He turned a bewildered gaze from the hand on his wrist to the angry face above him.
"There was a bear," he explained, mildly. "Did I get him?"
"Get him!" said Bantling, wrathfully. "You fool! You nearly got Rogers! And look at the damage you've done!"
As the situation dawned on Fox his dismay knew no bounds.
THE HUT WHERE THE NIGHTMARE INCIDENT HAPPENED, WITH ROGERS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY.From a Photograph.
THE HUT WHERE THE NIGHTMARE INCIDENT HAPPENED, WITH ROGERS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY.From a Photograph.
"I'm real sorry, you fellows," he said. "I guess I've had a touch of the worst kind of nightmare. Bantling, you'd better take charge of my six-shooter."
"You bet your life!" replied Bantling, briefly, but with immense feeling, as he took possession.
"I'm real sorry," said Fox again, turning to Rogers, "to have given you such a time. It appears it isn't me who ought to tell folks not to dream about bears, and I guess it'll be as well for the health of you fellows, if not my own, that I shouldn't eat quite such a hearty meal in future just before turnin' in."