CHAPTER XXII
IN THE CANYON
Ruth wheeled her mount the next moment and headed it again in the rightdirection. She saw at last what had caused her two companions suchwonder.
In a deep hole near the edge of the morass was a huge Hereford bull.Most of the cattle in that country were Herefords.
The animal had without doubt become foundered in the swamp hole; butthat was by no means the worst that had happened to him. While held morethan belly-deep in the sticky mud he had been attacked by the only kindof bear in all the Rockies that, unless under great provocation, attacksanything bigger than woodmice.
A big black bear had flung itself upon the back of the bellowing,struggling bull and was tearing and biting the poor creature's head andneck--actually eating the bull by piecemeal!
"Oh, horrors!" gasped Helen, sickened by the sight of the blood and theferocity of the bear. "Is that a dreadful grizzly? How terrible!"
"It's eating the poor bull alive!" Jennie cried.
Ruth had never ridden out from camp since Dakota Joe's last appearancewithout carrying a light rifle in her saddle scabbard. She rode aregular stockman's saddle and liked the ease and comfort of it.
Now she seized her weapon and cocked It.
"That is not a grizzly, girls!" she exclaimed. "The grizzly isordinarily a tame animal beside this fellow. The blackbear is themeat-eater--and the man-killer, too. I learned all about that in ourfirst trip out here to the West."
"Quick! Do something for that poor steer!" begged Helen. "Never mindlecturing about it."
But Ruth had been wasting no time while she talked. She first had to gether pony to stand She knew it was not gun-shy. It was only the scent andsight of the bear that excited it.
Once the pony's four feet were firmly set, the girl of the Red Mill, whowas no bad shot, raised her rifle and sighted down the barrel at thelittle snarling eyes of Bruin behind his open, red jaws. The bearcrouched on the bull's back and actually roared at the girls who hadcome to disturb him at his savage feast.
Ruth's trigger-finger was firm. It was an automatic rifle, and althoughit fired a small ball, the girl had drawn a good bead on the bear'smost vulnerable point--the base of his wicked brain! The several bulletspoured into that spot, severing the vertebrae and almost, indeed,tearing the head from the brute's shoulders!
"Oh, Ruth! You've done for him!" cried Helen, with delight.
"But the poor bull!" murmured Jennie. "See! He can't get out. He's donefor."
"I am afraid they are both done for," returned Ruth. "Take this gun,Jennie. Let me see if I can rope the bull and help him out."
She swung the puncher's lariat she carried hung from her saddle-bow withmuch expertness. She had practised lariat throwing on her previous tripsto the West. But although she was able to encircle the bull's bleedinghead with the noose of the rope, to drag the creature out of the morasswas impossible.
He was sunk in the mire too deeply, and he was too far gone now to helphimself. The bear had rolled off the back of the bull and after a fewfaint struggles ceased to live. But Bruin's presence made it verydifficult for the girls to force their ponies closer to the dying bull.
Therefore, after all, Ruth had to abandon her lariat, tying the end ofit to a tree and by this means keeping the bull from sinking out ofsight after she had put a merciful bullet into him.
As they rode near the Hubbell Ranch they stopped and told of theiradventure at the swamp, and a party of the boys rode out and saved bothbear and bull meat from the coyotes or from cougars that sometimes camedown from the hills.
The three girls had not been idly riding about the country during theseseveral days which had been punctuated, as it were, with the adventureof the bull and the bear. That very day they had found the canyon whichMr. Hammond and the director had been hoping to find and use in filmingsome of the most thrilling scenes of "Brighteyes."
As Ruth was the writer of the scenario it was natural that she should bequite capable of choosing the location. The lovely and sheltered canyonoffered all that was needed for the taking of the scenes indicated.
The girls went back the next day, taking Mr. Hammond with them. Thistime they merely glanced at the spot where the bear and the bull haddied, and they did not visit the family of nesters at all. The shadowymouth of the canyon, its sides running up steeply into the hills, waslong in sight before the little cavalcade reached it.
From the mouth of it Mr. Hammond could not judge if Ruth's selection oflocality was a wise one. Certain natural attributes were necessary tofit the needs of the story she had written. When, after they had riddena couple of miles up the canyon, he saw the cliff path and the lip ofthe overhanging rock on which the hero of the story and _Brighteyes_'Indian lover were to struggle, he proclaimed himself satisfied.
"You've got it, I do believe," the producer declared. "This will delightJim Hooley, I am sure. We can stake out a net down here under that rockso if either or both the boys fall, they will land all right. It will besome stunt picture, and no mistake!"
He wanted to look around the place, however, before riding back, and thegirls dismounted too. The bottom of the canyon was a smooth lawn--thegrass still green. For although the tang of winter was now in the aireven at noon, the weather had been remarkably pleasant. Only on thedistant heights had the snow fallen, and not much there.
There was a silvery stream wandering through the meadow over which thegirls walked. By one pool was a shallow bit of beach, and Ruth, comingupon this alone, suddenly cried out:
"Oh, Helen! Jennie! I am a Miss Crusoe. Come here and see theunmistakable mark of my Man Friday."
"What do you mean, you ridiculous thing?" drawled Jennie. "You cannot bea Crusoe. You are not dressed in skins."
"Well, I like that!" rejoined Ruth, raising her eyebrows in apparentsurprise, "I should think I was covered with skin. Why not? Am Idifferent from the remainder of humanity?"
Of course they laughed with her as they came to view her discovery uponthe sand. It was the mark of a human foot.
"And no savage, I'll be bound," said Helen. "That is the mark of amighty brogan. A white man's foot-covering, no less. See! There isanother footprint."
"He certainly was going away from here," Jennie Stone observed. "Who doyou suppose he is?"
"I wonder if his eyes are blue and if he has a moustache?" queriedHelen, languishingly.
"Bet he has whiskers and chews tobacco. I known these Western men. Bah!"
"Jennie takes all the romance out of it," said Ruth, laughing. "Now Idon't care to meet my Man Friday at all."
They ate a picnic lunch before they rode out of the lovely canyon. Mr.Hammond was always good company, and he exerted himself to beinteresting to the three girls on this occasion.
"My!" Helen remarked to Jennie, "Ruth does make the nicest friends,doesn't she? See how much fun--how many good times--we have had throughher acquaintanceship with Mr. Hammond."
Jennie agreed. But her attention was attracted just then to somethingentirely different. She was staring up the cliff path that Mr. Hammondhad praised as being just the natural landmark needed for the scene thecompany wished to picture.
"Did you see what I saw?" drawled the plump girl. "Or am I thinking too,too much about mankind?"
"What is the matter with you?" demanded Helen. "I didn't see any man."
"Not up that rocky way--there! A brown coat and a gray hat. Did yousee?"
"Ruth's Man Friday!" ejaculated Helen.
"I shouldn't wonder. But we can't prove it because we haven't the sizeof yonder gentleman's boot. Humph I he is running away from us, allright."
"Maybe he never saw us," suggested Helen.
They called to Ruth and told her of the glimpse they had had of thestranger.
"And what did he run away for, do you suppose?" demanded Jennie.
"I am sure you need not ask me," said Ruth. "What did he look like?"
"I did not see his face," said Jennie. She repeated what she hadalready said to Helen a
bout the stranger's gray hat and brown coat.
Ruth looked somewhat troubled and made no further comment Of course, thecoat and hat were probably like the coat and hat of numberless other menin the West. But the last time Ruth had seen Dakota Joe Fenbrook, thatindividual had been wearing a broad-brimmed gray sombrero and a brownduck coat.
Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest; Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies Page 22