The Trail of The Badger: A Story of the Colorado Border Thirty Years Ago

by Anonymous

  CHAPTER II

  SHEEP AND CINNAMON

  "That was the funniest thing I ever saw," exclaimed Uncle Tom, laughingin spite of himself, while at the same time, with a comically ruefultwist of his countenance, he rubbed the back of his neck where one ofthe wasps had "got" him. "The way poor Tim bolted out of his strongholdafter defying the whole population to come and get him out, was the veryfunniest thing I ever did see. That was a smart trick of that youngrascal; though I wish he had given me notice beforehand of what heintended to do. I'd have started to run a good five minutes earlier ifI'd known what was coming. Who is the boy, Warren?"

  "Well, that is not easy to say," replied our host, "for, as a matter offact, he does not know himself. His history, what there is of it, is apeculiar one. He lives up here at the head of the canon with an oldGerman named Bergen--commonly known as the Professor--and his Mexicanservant, a man of forty whom the professor brought up with him fromAlbuquerque, I believe. If Frank's object in coming here was to rub upagainst all sorts and conditions of men, he could hardly have chosen abetter place. Certainly he cannot expect to find a more remarkablecharacter than the professor.

  "The old fellow is regarded by the people here as a harmlesslunatic--which, in a community like this, where muscle is at a premiumand scientific attainments at a discount, is not to be wondered at--forit is incomprehensible to them that any man in his right mind shouldspend his life as the professor spends his.

  "The old gentleman is an enthusiastic naturalist. He is making acollection of the butterflies, beetles and such things, of the RockyMountain region, and with true German thoroughness he has spent years inthe pursuit. Choosing some promising spot, he builds a log cabin, andthere he stays one year--or two if necessary--until that district is'fished out,' as you may say, when he packs up and moves somewhere else,to do the same thing over again."

  "Well, that is certainly a queer character to come across," was UncleTom's comment. "But how about the boy, Sam? How does he happen to be insuch company?"

  "Why, about twelve or thirteen years ago, old Bergen was 'doing' thecountry somewhere northwest of Santa Fe, when he made a very strangediscovery. It was a bad piece of country for snowslides, which werefrequent and dangerous in the spring, and one day, being anxious to getto a particular point quickly, the professor was crossing the tail of anew slide--a risky thing to do--as being the shortest cut, when hisattention was attracted by some strange object lodged half way up thegreat bank of snow. Climbing up to it, he found to his astonishment thatthe strange object was a wagon-bed, while, to his infinitely greaterastonishment, inside it on a mattress, fast asleep, was a three-year-oldboy--young Dick!"

  "That was an astonisher, sure enough!" exclaimed I, who had been aneager listener. "And was that all the professor found?"

  "That was all. The running-gear of the wagon had vanished; the horseshad vanished; and the boy's parents or guardians had vanished--allburied, undoubtedly, under the snow."

  "And what did the professor do?"

  "The only thing he could do: took the boy with him--and a fortunatething it was for young Dick that the old gentleman happened to findhim. But though he inquired of everybody he came across--they were notmany, for white folks were scarce in those parts then--the professorcould learn nothing of the party; so, not knowing what else to do, hejust carried off the youngster with him, and with him Dick has been eversince."

  "That's a queer history, sure enough," remarked Uncle Tom. "And wasthere nothing at all by which to identify the boy?"

  "Just one thing. I forgot to say that in the wagon-bed was a singlevolume of Shakespeare--one of a set: volume two--on the fly-leaf ofwhich was written the name, 'Richard Livingstone Stanley, from Anna,'and as the boy was old enough to tell his own name--Dick Stanley--theprofessor concluded that the owner of the book was his father. Moreover,as the boy made no mention of his mother, though he now and then spokeof his 'Daddy' and his 'Uncle David,' the old gentleman formed thetheory that the mother was dead and that the father and uncle, bringingthe boy with them, had come west to seek their fortunes, and being verylikely tenderfeet, unacquainted with the dangerous nature of those greatsnow-masses in spring time, they had been caught in a slide andkilled."

  "Poor little chap," said Uncle Tom. "And he has been wandering aboutwith the old gentleman ever since, has he? He must be a sort of Wild Manof the West in miniature."

  "Not a bit of it. The professor is a man of learning, and he has notneglected his duty. Dick has a highly respectable education, includingsome items rather out of the common for a boy: he speaks German andSpanish; he has a pretty intimate knowledge of the wild animals of theRocky Mountains; and he is one of the best woodsmen and quite the bestshot of anybody in these immediate parts."

  "Well, they are an odd pair, certainly. I should like to go up and seethe professor--that is, if he ever receives visitors."

  "Oh, yes. He's a sociable old fellow. He and I are very good friends.I'll take you up there and introduce you some day. He is well worthknowing. If there is any information you desire concerning the RockyMountain country from here southward to the border, Herr Bergen can giveit you. You are to be congratulated, Frank, on making Dick'sacquaintance so early: he will be a fine companion for you while youstay here. You propose to go grouse-shooting to-morrow, do you? Well,you can take my shotgun--it hangs up there on the wall--and make a dayof it; for your uncle and I are proposing to ride up to inspect a mineon Cape Horn, which will take us pretty well all afternoon."

  I thanked our host for his offer, and next morning, gun in hand, I setoff immediately after breakfast for Dick's dwelling.

  Passing the "well" where Tim Donovan had taken refuge the day before, Iascended by a clearly-marked trail to the edge of the canon, andfollowing along it through the woods for about a mile, I presently camein sight of a little clearing, in which stood a neat log cabin of two orthree rooms. Outside was a Mexican, chopping wood, while in the doorwaystood Dick, evidently looking out for me, for, the moment I appeared, heran forward to meet me.

  "How are you?" he cried. "Glad you came early: I have a new plan for theday, if it suits you. I've been spying around with a field-glass andI've just seen a band of sheep up on that big middle spur of Mescalero;they are working their way up from their feeding-ground, and I proposethat we go after them instead of hunting grouse. What do you say?"

  "All right; that will suit me."

  "Come on, then. Just come into the house for a minute first and see theprofessor, and then we'll dig out at once."

  From the fact that Mr. Warren had so frequently spoken of the professoras "the old gentleman," I was prepared to see a bent old man, with awhite beard and big round spectacles--the typical "German professor," ofmy imagination. I was a good deal surprised, then, to find a small,active man of sixty, perhaps, a little gray, certainly, but with a clearblue eye and a wide-awake manner I was far from anticipating. He was inthe inner room when I entered--evidently the sanctum where he preparedand stored his specimens--but the moment he heard our steps he camebriskly out, and, on Dick's introducing me, shook hands with me veryheartily.

  "And how's poor Tim this morning?" he asked, as soon as the formalities,if they can be called so, were over.

  "He is all right, sir," I replied. "I went down there before breakfastthis morning at Mr. Warren's request to inquire. In fact, Tim was somuch better apparently that Mrs. Donovan declares that if he ever getsthe fever again she intends to apply iced water to his feet andwasp-stings to the rest of his anatomy, as being a sure cure. She isimmensely grateful to Dick for having discovered and applied a remedythat has worked so well."

  "Then if Tim is wise," remarked the professor, laughing, "he won't getthe fever again, for I should think the cure would be worse than thedisease. But you want to be off, don't you? Do you understand theworking of a Winchester repeater? Well," as I shook my head, "then youhad better take the Sharp's and Dick the Winchester. And, Dick, you'dbetter have an eye on the weather. Romero says there is a change coming
,and he is generally pretty reliable. So, now, off you go; and good luckto you."

  Leaving the cabin, we went straight on up the narrow valley for aboutthree miles--the pine-clad mountains rising half a mile high on eitherside of us--going as quickly as we could, or, to be more exact, going asquickly as I could. For the elevation, beginning at nine thousand feet,increased, of course, at every step, and I, being unused to suchaltitudes, found myself much distressed for breath--a fact which wasrather a surprise to me, considering that in our track-meets at schoolthe mile run was my strong point. I did not understand then that to getenough oxygen out of that thin mountain air it was necessary to take twobreaths where one would suffice at sea-level.

  We had ascended about a thousand feet, I think, when, at the base of thebare ridge for which we had been making, we slackened our pace, and mycompanion, who knew the country, taking the lead, we went scrambling upover the rocks and snow for an hour or more.

  The quantity of snow we found up there was a surprise to me, for, frombelow the amount seemed trifling. There had been a heavy fall up in therange a month before, and this snow, drifting into the gullies, hadsettled into compact masses, the surface of which, on this, the southernface of the mountain, being every day slightly softened by the heat ofthe sun, and every night frozen solid again, made the footingexceedingly treacherous. Whenever, therefore, we found it necessary tocross one of these steep-tilted snow-beds we did so with the greatestcaution.

  We had been climbing, as I have said, for more than an hour, and werenearing the top of the ridge, when Dick stopped and silently beckoned tome to come up to where he lay, crouching under shelter of a littleledge.

  "Smell anything?" he whispered.

  I gave a sniff and raised my eyebrows inquiringly.

  "Sheep?" said I, softly.

  My companion nodded.

  "They must be somewhere close by," said he, in a voice hardly audible."Go very carefully and keep your eyes wide open. If you see anything,stop instantly."

  We were lying side by side upon the rocks, Dick considerately waiting amoment while I got my breath again, and were just about to crawlforward, when there came the sound of a sudden rush of hoofs and aclatter of stones from some invisible point ahead of us, and then deadsilence again.

  "They've winded us and gone off," whispered Dick. But the next moment headded eagerly, "There they are! Look! There they are! Up there! See? My!What a chance!"

  Immediately on our left was a deep gorge, so narrow and precipitous thatwe could not see the bottom of it from where we lay. The sheep, havingseemingly got wind of us, with that agility which is always soastonishing in such heavy animals, had rushed down one side of theprecipitous gorge and up the other, and now, there they were, allstanding in a row--eleven of them--on the opposite summit, looking down,not at us, but at something immediately below them.

  "What do you suppose it is, Dick?" I whispered.

  "Don't know," my companion replied. "Mountain-lion, perhaps: they arevery partial to mutton. Anyhow," he continued, "if we want to get a shotwe must shoot from here: we can't move without the sheep seeing us, andthey'd be off like a flash if they did. You take a shot, Frank. Take thenearest one. Sight for two hundred yards."

  "No," I replied. "You shoot. I shall miss: I'm too unsteady for want ofbreath."

  "All right."

  Raising himself a fraction of an inch at a time until he had come to akneeling position, Dick pushed his rifle-barrel through a crevice in therocks, took aim and fired. The nearest sheep, a fine fellow with ahandsome pair of horns, pitched forward, fell headlong from the ledgeupon which he had been standing and vanished from our sight among thebroken rocks below; while the others turned tail and fled up themountain, disappearing also in a minute or less.

  "Come on!" cried Dick, springing to his feet. "Let's go across and gethim. Round this way. Don't trust to that slope of ice: you may slip andbreak your neck."

  "But the mountain-lion, Dick," I protested. "Suppose there's amountain-lion down there."

  "Oh, never mind him!" Dick exclaimed. "If there was one, he's gone bythis time. And even if he should be there yet, he'd skip the moment hesaw us. We needn't mind him. Come on!"

  Away we went, therefore, Dick in the lead, and scrambling quickly thoughcarefully down the rocky wall, we made our way up the bed of the ravineuntil we found ourselves opposite the ledge upon which the sheep hadbeen standing. Here we discovered that the wall of the gorge was splitfrom top to bottom by a narrow cleft--previously invisible to us--filledwith hard snow, and whether the sheep had been standing on the rightside or the left of this crevice, and therefore on which side the bigram had fallen, we could not tell; for the wall of the gorge, besidesbeing exceedingly rough, was littered with great masses of rock againstany of which the body of the sheep might have lodged.

  "I'll tell you what, Frank," said my companion. "It might take us anhour or two to search all the cracks and crannies here. The best planwill be to climb straight up to the ledge where the sheep stood and lookdown. Then, if he is lodged against the upper side of any of theserocks, we shall be able to see him. But as we can't tell whether he wasstanding on the right or the left of this crevice, suppose you climb upone side while I go up the other."

  "All right," said I. "You take the one on the left and I'll go up onthis side."

  It was a laborious climb for both of us--and how those sheep got upthere so quickly is a wonder to me still--but as my side of the crevicehappened to be easier of ascent than Dick's I got so far ahead of himthat I presently found myself about fifty yards in the lead.

  At this point, however, I met with an obstruction which at first seemedlikely to stop me altogether. The fallen rocks were so big, and piled sohigh, that I could not get over them, and for a moment I thought Ishould be forced to go back and try another passage. Before resortingto this measure, though, I thought I would attempt to get round thebarrier by taking to the snow-bank, supporting myself by holding on tothe rocks. To do this I should need the use of both my hands, so, as myrifle had no strap by which to hang it over my shoulder, I took out myhandkerchief, tied one end to the trigger-guard, took the other end inmy teeth, and slinging the weapon behind me, I seized the rock with bothhands and set one foot on the snow.

  It was at this moment that Dick, down below me on the other side of thecrevice, while in the act of crawling up over a big rock, caught aglimpse of something moving over on my side, and the next instant, outfrom between two great fragments of granite rushed a cinnamon bear andwent charging up the slope after me.

  The bear--as we discovered afterward--had found our sheep, and wasagreeably engaged in tearing it to pieces, when he caught a whiff of me.He was an old bear, and had very likely been chased and shot at morethan once in the past few years--since the white men had begun to invadehis domain--and having conceived a strong antipathy for thoseinterfering bipeds which walked on their hind legs and carried"thunder-sticks" in their fore paws, he decided instantly that, beforefinishing his dinner, he would just dash out and finish me.

  And very near he came to doing it. It was only Dick's quick sight andhis equally quick shout that saved me.

  My companion's warning cry to jump could have but one meaning: there wasnowhere to jump except out upon the snow-bank; and recovering from myfirst momentary panic, I let go my rifle and sprang out from the rocks.

  My hope was that I should be able to keep my footing long enough toscramble across to the rocks on the other side; but in this I wasdisappointed. The snow-bed lay at an angle as steep as a church roof,and while its surface was slightly softened by the sun, just beneath itwas as hard and as slippery as glass. Consequently, the moment my feetstruck it they slipped from under me, down I went on my face, and inspite of all my frantic clawing and scratching I began to slide brisklyand steadily down-hill.

  The bear--most fortunately for me--seemed to be less cunning than mostof his fellows. Had he paused for a moment to reason it out, he wouldhave seen that by waiting five seconds he might leap up
on my back as Iwent by. Luckily, however, he did not reason it out, but the instant hesaw me jump he jumped too, and he, too, began sliding down the icy slopeahead of me; for being, as I said, an old bear, his blunted claws couldget no hold.

  It was an odd situation, and "to a man up a tree," as the saying is, itmight have been entertaining. Here was the pursuer retreating backwardfrom the pursued, while the pursued, albeit with extreme reluctance, waspursuing the pursuer--also backward.

  It was like a nightmare--and a real, live, untamed broncho of anightmare at that--but luckily it did not last long. Finding that noefforts of mine would arrest my downward progress, and knowing that thebear, reaching the bottom first, need only stand there with his mouthwide open and wait for me to fall into it, I whirled myself over andover sideways, until presently my hand struck the rocks, my finger-tipscaught upon a little projection, and there I hung on for dear life, notdaring to move a muscle for fear my hold should slip.

  But from this uncomfortable predicament I was promptly relieved. I hadnot hung there five seconds ere the sharp report of a rifle rang out,and then another, and next came Dick's voice hailing me:

  "All right, Frank! I've got him! Hold on: I'm coming up!"

  Half a minute later, as I lay there face downward on the ice, I heardfootsteps just above me, a firm hand grasped my wrist, and a cheerfulvoice said:

  "Come on up, old chap. I can steady you."

  "But the bear, Dick! The bear!" I cried, as I rose to my knees.

  "Dead as a door-nail," he replied, calmly. "Look."

  I glanced over my shoulder down the slope. There, on his back among therocks, lay the cinnamon, his great arms spread out and his head hangingover, motionless. As the snarling beast had slid past him, not ten feetaway, Dick, with his Winchester repeater, had shot him once through theheart and once in the base of the skull, so that the bear was stone deadere he fell from the little two-foot ice-cliff at the bottom of theslope.

  As for myself, I had had such a scare and was so completely exhausted bymy vehement struggles during the past couple of minutes, that for aquarter of an hour I lay on the rocks panting and gasping ere I couldget my lungs and my muscles back into working order again.

  As soon as I could do so, however, I sat up, and holding out my hand tomy companion, I said:

  "Thanks, old chap. I'm mighty glad you were on hand, or, I'm afraid, itwould have been all up with me."

  "It was a pretty close shave," replied Dick; "rather too close forcomfort. He meant mischief, sure enough. Well, he's out of mischief now,all right. Let's go down and look at him."

  "I suppose," said I, "it was the bear that the sheep were looking downat when they stood up there on the ledge all in a row."

  "Yes, that was it. If I'd known it was a bear they were staring at I'dhave left them alone. A mountain-lion I'm not afraid of: he'll runninety-nine times out of a hundred. But a cinnamon bear is quite anotherthing: the less you have to do with them, the better."

  "Well, as far as I'm concerned," said I, "the less I have to do withthem, the better it will suit me. If this fellow is a sample of histribe I'm very willing to forego their further acquaintance: my firstinterview came too unpleasantly near to being my last. Come on; let's godown."