by Max Brand
What could have been more perfect as a natural home? The heart of Tommy swelled with the delight of a conqueror. He began to feel that, after all, his might not be a losing fight. There would be ways of making the struggle, and, although it might be bitter, was it not possible that he might stay on there until other men came that way? And surely they must come sooner or later, and, when they arrived in the valley, they must find signs that would lead them to his cave.
That thought inspired him to a new labor. But first of all he moved some burning embers of the fire to the front of the cave, and a little to the side. That must be his permanent fireplace, and he must never let the fire die lest his supply of matches should be exhausted. That could be arranged by a skillful laying of the fire.
Next he brought in all the pack, bit by bit, and distributed the articles on natural shelves of the rock where moisture would not get at them. When all was stowed away, it was a small beginning, indeed, and few tools for a twelve-year-old to use in his battle for life.
There was the body of poor Billy to be disposed of before it should become a problem. He decided that he would dig a hole just beside the body, so that Billy would slide into it. Then the dead burro could be covered over and the burial properly completed. That work could be done with the shovel that had always been a part of John Parks’s pack. But this could be left until the morrow. Other pressing things remained to be accomplished at once.
First of all, he must not venture out without a weapon. So he tied his father’s big Colt, in its holster, at his hip—it extended clear to his knee—and took the axe. He set out for the river, since it seemed to him that travelers would be most apt to come up or down its course, and, as he went, he left a blazed trail on the trees, making the marks so closely together that they would be sure to catch the eye in a continuous line.
A full four miles he continued until, leg weary from the walk and arm weary from wielding the heavy axe, he came to the edge of the stream. Its course was no longer fenced with steep cliffs here, but the water spread out over a wide, shallow channel, with broad-topped rocks gleaming just beneath the surface. By the shore he marked half a dozen pools where there must surely be excellent fishing. Here he blazed the trees, hewing off big sections of the bark and the surface wood to catch the eye of any wayfarer.
After that he rested an hour and started back along his own blazed trail. A mile from camp he stumbled across a big mountain grouse. He knocked the bird over with a luckily aimed rock and then wrung its neck, and, as he marched on again with his dinner in his hand, he found himself whistling. He stopped short to wonder at himself.
After all, he told himself, it had not been an unhappy morning. That blazed trail was certain to take the eye of some wandering trapper who would follow the sign to Tommy’s camp, and the stranger would lead him back into the world. The newborn hope straightway became a surety. It was a matter of only a few days, a few weeks at the most, before he would be discovered. Surely he could contain himself that long!
Coming onto the clearing again, he was shocked by the sight of the open entrance to the cave. He hurried in, but all was as he had left it. No prowling beast had taken advantage of his negligence to rob him of his store of food. He broiled the grouse and ate, and afterward he set about blocking the entrance to the cave.
It was not hard to do. There was a profusion of big rocks around the opening, and these he rolled into the entrance, walling it up solidly. Half a dozen stones in the center were of a size that he could easily handle, and these could be moved and removed when he returned to camp at the end of a day’s hunting, or left it in the morning.
By the time this was accomplished, he was tired, but here remained many a stretch of territory that must be explored. So he sallied out with axe and revolver once more and took the opposite direction, going up the slope toward the higher mountain.
There was far less likelihood of men straying through this region, and therefore he made his blazes fewer and farther between. In time he came out on an open place littered with the rocks of a recent small landslide that had scraped down the hillside beyond and sent a wash of boulders and small rocks across this comparative level. The sight caused Tommy to pause with concern, and he looked back down the slope in the direction of his camp. Suppose such a slide as this one should start and continue with greater volume down the hill— might he not be buried in his cave?
But he remembered a favorite saying of John Parks: “A man has to take chances of one kind or another.” And he turned to continue on his way. As he did so, however, his eye caught a motion among the rocks. He stopped short again, thrilling with fear. Just what had moved, he could not tell. He had a general impression, a chance-caught glimpse, rather than a definite picture. He jerked out the revolver. It was far too heavy for him, so he dropped down on one knee and supported the gun on the other. When in danger of wild beasts, he had learned long before, one must stand one’s ground, no matter with what fear. Man has no speed of foot, no escape, and flight simply invites pursuit.
But his heart was hammering at the base of his throat, filling his whole body with trembling, when he saw it again—a bit of fur stirring behind a rock—the gleam of bright eyes. Suddenly the whole head of a little bear cub no bigger than a rabbit popped into view, surveyed him intently for an instant, and disappeared again.
There is nothing more intriguing than a newborn cub, but Tommy felt no pleasure. A youngster of that age must be close to its mother, and mother grizzlies are apt to be incarnate fiends if they think that their offspring are in danger. Where was she now? He recalled a score of stories about the almost human intelligence of grizzlies, how they hide their trails when they are hunted, how they have been known to double back, more than once, and hunt the hunter.
Perhaps this old vixen was engaged in that occupation even now. Perhaps she was shielding herself behind one of the boulders just to his rear, creeping up silently—very silently—in spite of all her bulk. It seemed to Tommy that the air was suddenly rank with the odor of bear. He jerked his head around with a low gasp and stared behind him. He could see nothing, but at the same time, as though she had seen his fear and decided to lurk no longer, the great battle roar of a grizzly flooded around him, deafened him, seemed to pour out of the very ground on which he stood.
He leaped to his feet. He would have fled, if he could, but now he could not stir a muscle. Still that shambling, monstrous form that he expected did not come. The hollow echoes of the roar died off down the hillside, shattering to silence among the more distant trees. What did it mean? He could not flee, because he might run into the jaws of the great brute or within striking distance of a paw whose lightest stroke might smash his skull or crush his body.
Again the roar burst out at him, but this time, plainly, it was on the farther side of the rock jumble, pouring out of the earth. A furious scratching began at the same time, and a great boulder that leaned against the slope quivered out—then fell back with a jar. At the same instant, two little grizzly cubs jumped into view among the rocks and scurried as fast as their short legs would carry them for the great stone that had just been moved. Around the corner of it they darted and disappeared. The roaring and the scratching ceased at once, and Tommy understood. The grizzly had been blocked in her hole by this monster rock that the landslide had brought down.
CHAPTER FIVE
A WORK OF MERCY
In the last few seconds, fear had been so vitally a part of Tommy that he cast it off slowly. He rubbed his faintly corrugated forehead. He dragged in great, consciously taken breaths. Finally he was able to step forward without trembling, but, at the first sound of his coming, another roar came thundering out of the prison of the bear, and again the big boulder shook as she threw herself furiously against it.
The savage threats made him stop short again, but one glance at the boulder reassured him. It must have weighed hundreds and hundreds of pounds, and, although it was so curiously balanced that the grizzly could thrust it back a little a
nd make it shake, she could never really budge it.
Tommy came to the side of the rock around which the cubs had raced and saw that there was actually an opening a foot and a few inches across, covered with the scratches of the great brute where she had vainly tried to claw out a wider opening. Her roar had fallen to an ominous growling now, but Tommy, knowing that he was safe, went close and dropped upon his hands and knees to look in. A bear’s cave is rarely very large, but this one had been made to order for bruin—a shallow place hollowed out of the living rock of the hill. Also, it faced south away from the prevailing winds, which is perfectly in accord with a bear’s fancy. The heavy snows of midwinter must have covered the mouth of the cave and given all the necessary warmth. Besides, she had dragged up some brush to close the mouth of the cave.
In a moment, the eyes of Tommy were accustomed to the shadow, and he saw all too clearly. There lay the great brute, with the hair worn from hips and flanks. Hair was worn around her shoulders and neck, also, where she had attempted to thrust herself out past the boulder, and there was fresh blood from her attempt of only the moment before. He saw her paws and marked that the claws were broken short or worn away by her efforts to dig through the rock. And her desperate, reddened eyes glared out at him.
As for the cubs, they had regained courage as soon as they returned to the neighborhood of their mother. They began to steal toward the opening of the little cave in order to examine the stranger more carefully, but the mother, with a deep growl, scooped them back with the flip of a forepaw and with a violence that rolled them head over heels. They arose, shaking their heads, whined a little, and then sat up on their haunches, their little forepaws dangling, their sharp ears pricked, and stared at Tommy with insatiable curiosity.
How his heart went out to them! Bear cubs could be tamed, he knew. He had actually seen a burly yearling chained in the yard of a mountain rancher. And he had heard old trappers tell tales of Adams, king of bear tamers, who had reared bears that fought for him against their own kind and served him as pack animals—even as hunting dogs! If he had those bright-eyed little fellows in the cavern yonder, what companions they would be!
He sat down with a sigh, cross-legged, and watched them and wondered, while the wise old bear rested her great head on the bruised, bleeding paws and studied him in a reserved silence, as though she realized that she had less to fear from this man cub than from terrible man himself.
It would be easy enough, Tommy decided, to lie in wait and capture the little cubs when they ventured out, but, if he had them in the cave, there would be nothing to feed them. That thick layer of fat that a bear accumulates to sustain it during the hibernation months still left the old mother enough strength to suckle her cubs and sustain herself, and it might be many days before she began to starve. Eventually, however, unless she were freed to forage for herself, she must die, and the cubs must die with her for the lack of milk.
All of this Tommy knew, and the problem weighed heavily upon him. How could his strength avail to move that rock or to widen the opening? Even if he succeeded, would he not be opening a way so that the great brute might rush out and tear him to pieces?
Still, tentatively, he struck the boulder with the back of the axe. It brought a stunning roar from the old grizzly, so that Tommy involuntarily shrank back, but also he noted that a flake of rock had loosened and fallen under the blow. Tommy studied the monster rock curiously. It was hard as flint in seeming and in fact, but it was so very hard that it was brittle. Its surface had easily defied the tearing claws of the bear, but it proved friable under the stroke of something harder than itself. In fact, as he studied it more closely, he saw that its base, where it had struck other rocks after the fall down the mountain, was powdered to dust.
He tried it again, and with a harder blow, and this time a larger chip was loosened under the impact of the steel. The mother grizzly advanced furiously to the mouth of her choked cave and reached out a long forearm toward him with another roar, but she retreated almost at once and lay crowded back as far as possible in her cave. And Tommy commenced his work seriously.
It was slow progress that he made at best, for there must be a huge portion of the rock worn away before the great body of the bear could issue, and all he could do with the heaviest blow was to knock off a thin layer, bit by bit.
There was no roaring from the grizzly now. With her ears sharpened, her head raised, she watched his movements as eagerly as though their significance had finally dawned on her, and Tommy at length ventured to carry his work to the very edge of the aperture that opened between the rock of the boulder and the rock of the mountainside. Now, if she could understand at all with her brute intelligence, she would appreciate what he was trying to do, for every flake of stone that he loosened was perceptibly widening the surface.
When his arms were wearied by the hammering, he scraped the rock fragments away and stood up to stretch the kinks from his back and legs. As he stood away, the mother lunged forward and sniffed curiously at the place where he had been working. Still she cuffed the cubs into a corner when they attempted to investigate for themselves, but her own fears had so far relaxed that she lowered her burly head to her paws and watched and watched with the reddened little eyes.
Tommy worked until his aching shoulders stopped him, and by that time the shadows were beginning to slope far east among the trees, so he took his last look at the bear family and bade them good night. A boy cannot do without names. He had christened the fatter of the cubs Jack and the slenderer one Jerry, so he called their new names to them and then picked up his axe and turned homeward.
Dusk began to gather as he walked, but still there was enough light for him to see and kill another grouse. It was between sunset and dark when he reached the camp with his prize.
Others had been there before him. There would be no need of burial for the body of poor Billy. A scattering of bones was all that was left of him, and Tommy, shuddering, searched the ground and found the trails of great-footed timber wolves and small-toed coyotes. These had devoured the burro, and, led doubtless by their insatiable appetites, they had come to the mouth of his cave and had even succeeded in scratching away half a dozen of the smaller stones. They had been able to make no entrance, however, and Tommy felt a thrill of pride in his work of fortification. Utter fatigue, however, buried all sense of satisfaction. He could barely keep awake while he half cooked his dinner, and half an hour later, with the fire smoldering just outside the cave and his blankets made down within its mouth, he was sound asleep, to dream of weird monsters locked in caves from which he liberated them, only to have them fly at his throat. He did not waken until the sun was over the eastern mountains.
CHAPTER SIX
STRENGTH TO PRESERVE
He rose like a conqueror, for had he not faced hard fortune, and in so short a space made a home, killed his own food, and cooked it? If there were sorrow just behind him, and unknown terrors in the future, he kept away from all thought of these things by centering his mind resolutely on what lay immediately before him. The first thing, even before breakfast, was to bury the bones of poor Billy. He shoveled a hole in the soft dirt, and in half an hour all that was mortal of the burro lay underground, with a litter of heavy rocks above it to keep out curious wolves.
Then he cut a slender sapling, straight as a rule and willowy in suppleness. To the end he tied the fishing line and hook. On the bank of the little stream that worked around the foot of his hill, he found bait in plenty at the first turn of his shovel, and soon he had jerked three big trout from the water.
That made a delicious breakfast, toasted brown over wood coals as he had been taught to do by John Parks. After he had eaten, he stood up and stretched his arms, filled with a sense of joyful power. How painfully small and weak he was, matched with those enormous mountains, those huge, dark woods. Yet he had won a livelihood from them these few days; he would keep on winning it until his blazed trails led a rescuer to his camp.
But,
if he wakened hungry from the fasting of a single morning, what must be the case of the poor mother bear? He knew that after hibernation a grizzly eats little during the first week, but it might be many and many a day since the big bear had wakened from her season of sleep. She must be wild with famine and with thirst, he thought.
Close to the cave of the bruin, the day before, he had heard the voice of a brook and even had seen the waters pooled in a little lake that promised to be brimful of fish. So he took with him for the day’s expedition the fishing line and rod, his father’s four-pound hammer, which was one of the most valued articles in the pack, the revolver tied on his hip, and a square of the tarpaulin on which their blankets had been laid. So off he went through the woods, with his whistle running thrillingly before him.
But no one can whistle long through the solemnity of virgin forest. The music died away, and Tommy went on, silent and serious, among the great trees. Now that he was left lonely in the wilderness, it took on a different face and spirit in his eyes. The shadowed places were full of a solemn interest.
The huge trunks were full of signs to him. Every tree carried a character of its own. Every rustling breeze seemed to hold a message for Tommy, if he could only have understood the sighing voices. Instinctively he walked softly, letting the toe strike first, and avoiding all twigs that might make a crackling underfoot. Now and again he paused, near a tree, and reconnoitered the forest ahead and behind. It seemed to him that the moving shadows must be cast by living beasts of prey, which stalked him. No matter if reason told him that they were not apt to rove abroad except during the evening and the night, still he was troubled, and he took care not to walk along the trail that he had followed the day before.
He reached the clearing with its litter of stones and fallen boulders, and, as he stepped out from behind the trees, he discovered that even his silent coming had not been silent enough, for there were the two little balls of fur, Jack and Jerry, scurrying as hard as they could for the shelter of the mother’s cave. Their hair-trigger senses had warned them of his approach. When he stepped toward the cave, he was greeted with the same tremendous roar from the bruin.