by Max Brand
Full of that thought, Dunstan was slow in opening his mail—a single letter in the handwriting of Dr. Morgan. There was another reason for that slowness. Now that Morgan was off the range, he was of no more interest to the cattleman than a fixed star of the very least magnitude.
My Dear Dunstan: I am sorry to learn that you have decided not to take advantage of the farming possibilities in your new acreage, but that is a matter of your own business and not mine. There is another matter in which I still retain an interest, and that is the person of young Sandy Sweyn. I am a thousand times obliged to you for taking care of him up to this point, according to your agreement.
When I returned to New York, I found that my affairs were in a much better condition than I had expected. A very lucky upward movement in some stocks has left me financially at ease, and therefore I am buying a place in Connecticut.
It is rather a wild section, and I think that Sandy would be perfectly at home here. He will be able to bring the roan with him. I enclose a check that will be enough to bring Sandy and Cleo, also. And besides, you will find enough in it to give Sandy a suit of Sunday clothes, and a little spending money from time to time.
May I trouble you to see that he buys the clothes and gets the necessary tickets? Once aboard the train a word to the conductor will be enough to assure the delivery of Sandy at my place.
In conclusion, I am sure that you have not found that your time with Sandy has been entirely wasted. I used to learn something from him every day. So much so, that I shall hate to look forward to a stay in the open country without Sandy along to act as eyes and ears to me.
Please let Sandy know the contents of this letter. I would ask you to let him read it, but reading is a long and bitter process for Sandy.
Faithfully yours,
Henry Morgan
The rancher read the letter through a second time, and with more care. The first image that formed in his brain was that of Sandy lying asleep on the ground with the great bull beside him. After all, there was a couple thousand dollars in cash value in that reclaimed bull, and if it had not been for Sandy, how would the great beast ever have been handled? Dunstan did not know.
He had just reached that point in his thoughts, when he heard the voice of the cook, roaring in the kitchen.
“Here’s Sandy back…and he’s got it!”
“Got what? The bear?”
There stood Sandy in the doorway with a great pile of bearskin rolled upon his shoulder, a crushing weight of green hide.
“Good heavens, Sandy!” the rancher cried. “Have you carried that far?”
“Oh, about seventy-five miles,” Sandy said. “I thought that maybe you would like to have it.”
Let a man like this go back to Dr. Henry Morgan? A man capable of such a feat as this?
Peter Dunstan stared intently at the blank face of the hunter, then with hasty fingers he tore the letter into small shreds.
Fourteen
Men west off the Rockies still place a very high value upon mere physical prowess. The result was that the roll of the bear’s hide was weighed, green and heavy as it was, and when the poundage was known, two of Dunstan’s cowpunchers were commissioned to follow the trail of Sandy Sweyn through the lowlands and into the hills. Even for horses, hard-ridden, that journey took nearly four days, though part of this was spent in worrying over the problems of the trail. When they returned to the ranch of Dunstan, they came with the tale of a superman’s achievement. As Shorty put it: “Not even a horse could’ve done that job and packed that hide back so fast.”
When the two came back, they found that trouble was in the air, for in the first place Dunstan had drawn from Sandy the true story of all that had happened in the little clearing among the pines. When he heard of the presence of a bear bigger and stronger than Buck, with a pelt twice as fine as the one that was now being cured, he was greatly excited. He would have had Sandy start at once in the pursuit of the second bear, but Sandy was strangely reluctant. When Dunstan pressed him, Sandy relapsed into a gloomy silence from which nothing at all could be gleaned.
So Peter Dunstan decided that Sandy must be handled with gloves. It was not that he was afflicted with any peculiar sympathy for Sandy, but rather because he now recognized in Sandy Sweyn a property of such value that the rancher began to feel that therein lay his most priceless single possession. Although he had had Sandy with him only a short time, the youngster had rendered most important services.
The destruction of the big bear could hardly be attributed to him, but he had been able to stalk it with such uncanny closeness that he watched the battle between the two from a box seat, so to speak. It was only reasonable to suppose that Sandy could have killed the brute whenever he chose. That bear had cost the ranch a thousand dollars’ worth of labor and time in futile pursuit, a thousand dollars’ worth of worry, and well more than a thousand dollars in actual loss of cattle. Then there was the matter of the red Durham bull. How many other matters might appear?
In a single season, such a matchless hunter as this might rid the Dunstan range of all his coyotes, wolves, bears, and mountain lions. What would not this be worth to one who lost as many from his calf crop as did Peter Dunstan every year? Therefore, when Sandy grew silent and morose, the rancher did not insist, but he said gloomily to the cook: “What the devil can be bothering him now?”
“I tell you,” declared Steve McGuire, “that nobody is gonna get any good out of him. But he’ll do more harm in the end than ever he done good. And you write me down in red for that, partner.”
The rancher wrote him down in red, as a matter of fact. He came to his new decision about the big invading grizzly. He would himself dispense with the services of Sandy and would ride up and try to trail the big fellow.
He informed Sandy to that effect. Sandy’s reply was a staggerer to Dunstan. He sat with a contorted brow for a long time. Then he said: “Look here, Mister Dunstan, it ain’t right, it seems to me.”
“What’s not right?”
“To kill that bear,” Sandy replied.
“Not right to kill that bear?” shouted the rancher. “And why not, Sandy?”
“I dunno that the bear has harmed you, has he?” Sandy asked hopefully.
“Why, he’s living on my land, part of the time, and he’s apt to come down and begin to live on cattle the same way that Buck did, and kill hundred-dollar steers for the sake of one meal, the way that Buck did. Isn’t that a harm to me?”
This proposition was long seriously considered by Sandy. Finally he said: “The way it seems to me…he is a bear, and no man.”
“You’re a wise fellow, Sandy,” the rancher said ironically. “He’s a bear and not a man. I grant you that.”
“And how could he know what pleases you and what don’t please you? And was he made for the sake of pleasing you?”
“Maybe not,” the rancher remarked, smiling with pity at this sort of logic. “But my rifle was not made for the sake of pleasing him, either.”
This seemed a great point to Sandy, and he went away and digested the thought for an hour. When he came back, he had attacked the problem from a new angle. He said to big Dunstan: “If you was to knock down a man, would you hit him after he was down?”
“I suppose not.”
“Well, that black grizzly has got a hurt forepaw. That paw is so bad hurt that he can’t run very well to hide himself, and he can’t very well manage to fight much for himself, either, can he?”
The patience of the rancher was ended. He exploded suddenly: “In the name of the devil, what are you talking about? What has this nonsense to do with my right to go out and shoot a bear on my own range…or a range right near to mine?”
The blank eyes of Sandy filled with trouble. “It’s this way,” he said. “The trouble is that the black fellow…he was working for you and for me, in a way, when he killed Buck, wasn’t
he?”
“Working for me?” shouted the rancher, infuriated and confused.
Sandy shrank back. Anger always bewildered and frightened him. “You wanted Buck killed…and you sent me to do it. When the black fellow killed Buck, he did my work for me, and the thing that you wanted done. Ain’t that all true?”
“By accident!” Dunstan cried. “Do you think that a bear has a reasoning brain…or what do you think, Sandy?”
“I dunno,” Sandy said with a sigh. “Only, it seems to me that it ain’t hardly right for the black fellow to be killed like this.”
“Bah!” Dunstan exclaimed. “You stay here behind. I’m riding up through the hills with a couple of the boys. It’s a long time since I’ve dropped a bear…but inside of a week, Sandy, you’ll see the hide of the big black boy stretched out yonder beside that of Buck.”
As he turned away, it seemed to Dunstan that a voice murmured behind him: “But I only wonder…is it right?”
This chapter made a good story for Dunstan to confide to McGuire. But McGuire did not laugh at it.
“You see,” he said, “that’s the reason he’s dangerous. He might just as well as not be thinking the way that a bear would think…or a horse would think…or a hawk would think. But I can do my swearing that he ain’t the kind of a man to think the way that a man should think.”
He said this so seriously that Peter Dunstan regarded his wise cook with some wonder. There seemed so much meaning in what McGuire had just said, that Dunstan had no desire to press him for a full answer. Instead, he gave his attention to the task of preparing for the hunt. He picked out Shorty and Doc Lawrence, his two best trailers and surest shots. In their company he left the ranch that same afternoon.
There was little to do on the ranch at that particular season of the year. The other hands would be able to take care of the work during the next week. Surely the chase of the lamed bear, if all went well, would not require much more than a week.
They struck away merrily in the indicated direction, and all went so well that, the next morning, they were well into the uplands. That very evening, cutting in great circles for sign, they came upon the trail of the mighty stranger who limped with one forepaw, stepping constantly short with it. On that trail they gathered. All through the day it grew clearer and clearer before them, until they discovered, in the midafternoon, that another horseman was riding on the same trail. For the sign of his horse lay before them, wherever the ground was soft enough to show the impression of the hoofs.
They pressed on more eagerly than ever, but now they came to country so rough that the horses had to be abandoned to the care of Doc while Shorty and Dunstan, being expert mountaineers, went forward with rifles and small knapsacks.
In the rougher going, even with a wounded paw, the bear could make better time comparatively. Still they felt sure that no crippled beast could long keep away from them. They pressed on swiftly, steadily, drawing their belts tighter as the day grew older. In the gold of the late afternoon, Shorty pointed with a sudden shout. The rancher looked up, too late to see.
“The bear?” he cried.
“No, but a horse and man…a sort of a blue-looking horse…it must be the gent that’s hunting the bear ahead of us!”
Yes, for the hoof prints that had disappeared as the rough going began, now started in once more. Though it seemed a miracle that horse and rider could make any time over such going. “Unless that horse has got a cross strain of mountain sheep in him,” said Shorty.
All through the rest of the afternoon, they drew fresher and fresher upon the tracks. At the very end of the day they came to a crushing disappointment. The bear had crossed a natural bridge that spanned a narrow gorge. Then, turning, he must have ripped the top boulders away until he came to the keystone of the arch. In the bottom of the gorge lay the rubble of fallen stones. In front of the two hunters there was a dismal gap of twenty feet—more than either of them cared to risk by jumping.
“I’ve heard of wise bears and wise bears,” Dunstan muttered, “but never of one like this lame devil, and I’m going to get him now or die trying. Why, Shorty, this bear is worth writing a book about, if he has the sense to do tricks like this.”
Shorty shook his head solemnly. “Chief,” he said, “no bear ever broke down that bridge. It was done by the gent that’s riding ahead of us. He broke it down so that we couldn’t get at the bear before him.”
“Man, man!” the rancher cried, pointing to the junk heap of immense stones in the bottom of the ravine. “Is there any man you know of that could handle stones the size of them?”
“Aye,” Shorty said, coloring a little. “There’s one man. You know him, too.”
Fifteen
It was true that Dunstan understood the meaning of Shorty perfectly, but he made no reference to his understanding. He merely gave his strength and agility and patience to climbing down the near wall of the ravine and ascending upon the farther side. This work consumed an hour’s time and left them utterly spent. As they came to the edge of the cliff, on the farther side of the ravine, they heard the ringing report of a rifle before them.
“The young devil,” Dunstan murmured. “He wouldn’t let me kill that bear with my own gun…he had to…. And now we’ll meet him coming back, carrying the hide.”
They built a large fire to direct the lucky hunter ahead of them. But no Sandy Sweyn appeared.
The next morning they had not advanced a half mile on their way along the trail before they came upon a half-consumed carcass of a mountain sheep. It had been shot from the towering rocks above and had broken its bones to bits in the fall from the height. It had not been more than touched by the hunter. Around the body were the huge imprints of the paws of the bear, which they had been hunting so eagerly. It had evidently dined most heartily.
Peter Dunstan swore volubly. He avoided the eye of Shorty as they hurried on down the trail again, for each knew the thought of the other, and each felt that that thought was too ridiculous to be trusted in words.
Presently they came to a line of blazes. That thickly blazed trail led them to a tree from which a great section of the face had been chopped away, leaving a broad and very. fairly smooth white surface upon which certain letters had been inscribed in a great, painful, childishly sprawling hand: I don’t think that you shuld wory this bear no more. He ain’t traubled you none.
“It’s Sandy,” the rancher said. “And you were right, Shorty. But it’s a hard thing to believe that a man would ride up here for the sake of working for a bear.”
Shorty shook his head. “This Sandy Sweyn, he’s different,” he said. “I seen that when I seen the way that he rode on that roan mare. Because I could tell that he knew how to lighten his weight a whole lot. No, he’s a pretty queer sort of a man, chief. I tell you, right now he’s riding his horse right alongside of that bear…otherwise, his tracks would fall in a straight line right on top of the grizzly’s tracks.”
This conjecture might be wild, but, at least, there was the token upon the ground as they crossed a bit of soft mountain turf, where the imprints were clearly revealed. There was the trail of the bear and just beside it the more deeply driven hoof marks of the horse.
“It ain’t natural, and it ain’t right…but it’s a fact,” Shorty commented. “And there you can see it with your own eyes.”
Dunstan stopped and swore a great oath. “I’m going to keep right after this trail,” he said, “if it takes me the rest of my life. I’m going to have that bear’s hide and claws. Do you hear me talk, Shorty?”
“I’d rather not, though,” Shorty answered, “because I’ve got an idea that maybe you’ll wish that you hadn’t said that same thing.”
They hurried on again, striding long and free.
“Because,” big Peter Dunstan said, “you can see how it is. That bear doesn’t have to stop to forage for himself. He’s got a hunter with him
, and that hunter kills his game for him. As for his lame paw…why, he seems to be able to bear up on that, well enough.”
For these reasons, they worked fast and gave themselves no rest. The evening of the next day found them footsore, utterly exhausted, and very hungry. Just at the setting of the sun, they came upon a crooked pine tree on the side of the hill, with the face cut away as the other tree had been. Upon the white surface thus exposed there was written in that same labored and sprawling hand: This bear can’t go no farthur, but I ain’t gonna let you come at him. Sandy Sweyn.
“He’s not going to let us?” Dunstan said. “Does the fool mean that he would actually…?”
* * * * *
The next morning, when he prepared to start out on the trail, Shorty remained stubbornly in the camp. “Look here,” he said. “I ain’t a coward, I hope. But I ain’t gonna get myself killed for the sake of any bear that was ever born. I don’t value them hides so much as all of that, y’understand? And this Sandy Sweyn, he means business now. And when he means business, he shoots too straight to please me a little bit. I’m gonna stay put right here in the camp. You go ahead if you want to, I’ll start out a little later and make myself a burying party.”
Peter Dunstan was angered by this defection. But after all, Shorty was a proved man of worth. The rancher had to start on by himself, in a towering passion. Passion was not great enough in him to make him go without caution. He stole through the scattering forest of these highlands with all the skill that he could muster. He came, at length, to a region of bare rocks, with a stream trickling feebly down among them—a region where there was cover, to be sure, but not cover like that of the woods.