University of Virginia Library

15. XV.
THE BEAR-HUNT.

IT was a morning in the month of September.

Some young girls went up to a hill south of
the village for blackberries. They were picking
busily, and chatting merrily, when it was discovered that
they were not alone in that desert of rocks and bushes
They heard a rustling, and saw a black coat through the
briers, — a very mysterious - looking black coat, the wearer
of which appeared to be advancing towards them on hands
and knees. They retreated a short distance, and held a
whispered consultation; when the stranger, approaching behind
a low clump of foliage, stopped, and, slowly raising himself
on his feet, looked over. It was a figure, a countenance,
to stamp itself in the memory. With simultaneous screams
they ran wildly away, tearing through briers, stumbling over
stones, dashing like a waterfall down the rocks, and not venturing
once to look back till they were off the hill.

The said black coat was not a coat merely, but a complete
suit, — trousers and waistcoat all in one, — which doubtless

the wearer would have been very sorry to lose, on account
of the extreme difficulty of getting another. Nevertheless,
within half an hour from the time when he winked over the
bushes at the girls, a dozen men had resolved to have that
sable garment off his back before sundown.

Foremost of all went Guy, clad in a gray hunting-jacket,
buttoned well about his compact form; a gray hunting-cap,
from beneath which flowed his wavy brown hair; in his hand
a short rifle; in his belt a pistol and a knife; at his side his
dogs. He stopped for Jehiel on his way; and, while Jehiel
was loading his musket and pulling on his boots, what more
natural than that Guy should spring up stairs, and spend a
precious moment with Lucy?

She knew his step, — for nobody else ever mounted those
stairs at three bounds, — and was almost in his arms before
she noticed his piratical appearance.

“What!” she cried, admiring him in that strange costume,
“have you turned bandit?”

“Yes: I'm going to waylay a traveller over here, and
rifle his trunk.”

“A bear?” And Lucy was astonished to learn that she
had rightly guessed; for, though individuals of the ursine
species were known still to exist in the mountain wildernesses,
their appearance within the range of civilization was of rare
occurrence.

“He has had the presumption to go blackberrying with
the girls; for which he must die.”

“But, Guy! — you will get hurt!”

She was pale with fear; but he laughed gayly at the
danger.

“Only cowards get hurt. Never fear for me! Good-by!”
He clasped and kissed her, and was off before she
could speak.

From her window she saw him dash with his dogs across
the brook, climb the bank, swing his cap at her from the
summit in the attitude of a Mercury “new-lighted on a
heaven-kissing hill,” and then disappear.

She sat down with fainting soul, and thought, “What if
he should die? God keep him! — God keep him!” she
prayed with the wild fervor of love and fear, demanding
only that he might live; forgetting that there are evils worse
than death.

Joined at the foot of the hill by Jehiel, Madison, and
Aaron Burble, — who had brought Ann Maria with him as
a guide to the spot where she and her mates had seen the
bear, — Guy swiftly stated the plan he had decided upon for
the hunt. Madison, who had no gun, was to stay behind,
and keep back the dogs until they were needed. Jehiel,
and others who arrived, hastened around the eastern side of
the hill, to station themselves by a field which the bear must
cross if he attempted a direct escape to the mountains.
Then Guy and Aaron, receiving their directions from Ann
Maria, who was left behind for safety, advanced cautiously
into the undergrowth, hoping to get within sight and gun-shot
of Bruin before he took the alarm.

With great difficulty, Madison restrained the dogs and his
own impatience after the others departed. He entered the
bushes, brandishing a pitchfork, which he felt confident no
discreet bear would fancy the looks of in his valiant hands.

Suddenly the report of a gun on the hill filled the listeners
with anxious expectation. Who fired? Was the bear
shot?

Aaron rushed up to Guy in the thickets.

“Did you fire?”

“No. Somebody has got the start of us. Hark! — that
crashing!”

Some object was hurrying through the thickets. Both
sprang forward to intercept it; but it passed unseen, swiftly
descending the hill on the side they had come up. They
remembered with dismay Ann Maria, left below there, and
doubtless joined by this time by others too timid to engage
in the hunt. Guy shouted to Madison to look out for what
was coming.

Rallying around him the alert and excited dogs, Madison
stood with levelled pitchfork to receive the enemy. But presently
hearing a formidable crackling and thrashing in the
thickets, as of a monster plunging directly towards him, his
courage failed, and he sprang backwards. To increase his
consternation, a wild vine caught his heel, and threw him.
Through the bushes, straight down upon him, before he could
rise, came the cause of the commotion.

“Seek! bite 'em!” he said to the dogs, and, sticking up

his pitchfork to defend himself, came within an inch or two of
perforating the waistbands of Archy Brandle, who emerged,
leaping in terror down the declivity.

Luckily the dogs knew Archy, and looked beyond him for
their game. Madison's courage rose at once, and he rose
with it.

“What ye running so like a scar't devil for?”

Hatless, hair erect, staring, Archy gasped out as soon as
he could articulate, —

“I shot a bear!”

“You have? Where's yer gun?”

“I — I d'n' know: lost it.” There was another clashing
of the bushes. “He's coming! He's arter me!” shrieked
Archy.

“Don't ye run!” cried Mad. “I'll fork him! the dogs'll
take him!” And, valiant as if he had slain one monster
already, and was good for several more, he stood holding his
fork while Guy and Aaron came hurriedly out of the thickets;
the latter, with his face and figure and black beard,
resembling so much an ursus Americanus, that Mad afterwards
swore that he should have stuck him if he had come
first.

“Where was the bear?” was the eager inquiry of the
hunters.

“'Twas Archy! and I come perty nigh fixing him,” said
Mad, with a wicked expression about the eyes. “He has
shot your bear for ye.”

This was the way of it: —

Archy had been up on the hill for berries, taking the old
shot-gun along in hopes he might see a partridge. Having
filled his basket, he was walking over a barren ridge, his basket
in one hand, and his gun in the other, when he came to
a steep place which it was necessary to descend. Hearing a
noise, he set down his basket, and, advancing with careful
steps and levelled piece, met Bruin exactly face to face. He
looked at Bruin; Bruin looked at him. He seemed benumbed
by the sight; and it was a moment before the reality of the
thing, with all its terrors, came over him. Then, raising his
gun, he took aim (he thinks), and fired. An awful growl followed
the report, to be dreamed of with starts of horror many
a night afterwards. But Archy had no thought of waiting to
witness the effect of his shot. Flinging down his gun, he took
to his legs. Thus much, though rather less coherently, he related
to the hunters; volunteering to return with them to the
spot, where he hoped to find his hat and his berries, with perhaps
a slaughtered wild beast.

He knew the hill so well, that with little difficulty he took
them to the ridge. Here was his hat in one place; there
was his basket of berries. There lay his gun on the ground.
But no Bruin.

“I don't believe you fired within a mile of that bear!”
said Mad. “I'll try it next time!” possessing himself of
the gun. “You may keep the fork.”

But Archy, who was anxious to follow up the game, which

he was sure he must have wounded, would not consent to the
exchange. A scuffle ensued; Mad looking as if he would
about as willingly do Archy a mischief as the bear. Guy
made him give Archy the gun; and, to satisfy him, let him
have his pistol.

The dogs had by this time scented the game; and no time
was to be lost in following them.

Bruin had evidently been not much less frightened than
Archy; the progress he made showing that he had fled in
one direction as fast as the youth in the other. Crack!
bang! went a rifle and a musket, almost simultaneously, beyond
the hill.

Jehiel and a companion, stationed in the field, had fired at
him as he passed. The dogs appeared soon. The hunters
followed from the hill. The game plunged into a swamp,
which echoed presently with the cry of hounds, the crack of
guns, and the shouts of men.

It was a small swamp of balsams, hackmatacks, cedars,
and fallen trunks; gray, mossy, tangled, pathless. Here the
bear paused, perhaps considering himself safe in that gloomy
fastness. But through the low spiked branches blazed a
couple of guns, and over logs and hollows dashed the dogs.
Yelps of pain, and growls of rage, succeeded the onset; and
straightway out of the swamp, through an undergrowth beyond,
swept a huge, polypous, many-headed, terrific monster,
— one indistinguishable mass of dogs and bear. It left an
open path behind it. The hunters sped after, and came upon

an animal kicking on his back, as if in the last spasm. It was
Ranger, out of whose body the breath had been beaten by the
stroke of a paw. Guy spoke to him: he got up, limping, and
carrying his tail dejectedly; but soon recovered his spirit,
and joined again in the chase.

They approached the mountain's side, near which the clamor
of the dogs proclaimed that the bear was at bay.

Guy hurried forward. The thickets opened upon a scene
of awful grandeur. Stern and tremendous rose the cliffs
before him. Vast cataracts of stones, high-piled enormous
blocks, like stairs for Titans to mount, covered the mountain's
front, and deluged its base. High over all soared the gray,
eternal crags, like shattered columns towering above the ruins
of overthrown pyramids.

In the cavernous recesses of these rocks the bear had sought
refuge; and the hunters, rushing up, found the dogs barking
at the mouth of an extemporized den.

It was a dismal cavity, running between and beneath the
irregularly tumbled masses. An ice-cold stream flowed out
of it. From dark chambers, where the winter's accumulated
frosts never failed, an atmosphere of arctic death breathed
chill in the face of the warm and living day. At the entrance
the dogs voiced their fury and fear, not daring to penetrate the
horrid hole.

Madison, with pitchfork and pistol, was on the spot almost
as soon as Guy. But Aaron ploughed his way more slowly,
with Archy in his wake. Jehiel and two or three others came

by a more circuitous route, frequented by visitors who flocked
thither to find ice in midsummer, climb the Titanic stairs, and
scratch their names among the leathery lichens that incrust
their ancient surfaces.

Guy drove back the dogs, and asked the hunters what was
to be done.

“I believe I can see the cus,” was Mad's profane remark,
peering into the den, with his hands and feet in the water.

“Go in and ketch him by the legs, and I'll take you by
the legs and haul you both out,” said Aaron. “Or, if anybody'll
lift the eend of that rock, I'll jump in and ketch your
bear myself;” and he mopped his forehead with his big brown
hand.

“That rock is just about the size of my kitchen,” remarked
Jehiel.

“Which you expect you'll be cooking some of that bearsteak
in to-morrow morning; but you won't,” said Aaron.
“I move that we give up the brute, and go and find Biddikin's
money at the top of the rocks. They say you can see
it, provided you're a medium; and it only needs a little digging
to get it.”

“I imagine,” said Guy, “it will be easier and more profitable
to get the bear than the money. He is in a corner at the
end of this rock, — just where a bullet won't reach him.”

“Give me five dollars,” said Mad with an oath, “and I'll
go in and shoot him!”

“He would hug you to death before you could pull a trigger.”

“Five dollars would more than pay the damage, though,”
was Aaron's suggestion; which elicited from Mad one of his
very disagreeable, murderous looks.

“You better dry up,” said he, “or there'll be damages
five dollars won't pay.”

“Keep your temper, boy!” said Guy, “and give me the
pitchfork.”

“You better take the pistol; he'll be shooting somebody
with it,” said Aaron, delighting to exasperate the Biddikin
youth, the two having been together enough to hate each
other cordially.

Guy explored the den, and verified his conjecture regarding
Bruin's position by eliciting a fierce growl, and having the
fork nearly knocked from his grasp as he thrust it towards
the hidden corner.

“What did you come out for?” laughed Aaron. “I
wouldn't come out without the bear.”

“No: you would come out with the bear a good deal
faster than you went in!”

The dogs in the mean time were climbing about the rocks
to find another entrance to Bruin's retreat. Guy followed
them.

“What a place this would be for a fellow to hide when
officers was after him!” said Mad, with a gloating grin at the
piled acres of rocks.

“Look out you don't ever have to try it,” said Aaron.

“There's holes up there he could slip down in, where no

beef-fed constable could get at him,” young Biddikin added,
with a fire in his eyes that betokened a vivid imagination of
some such scene.

Now, Aaron, with his burly proportions, happened also to
be a constable.

“You may wish that beef-fed constables was skurcer than
they be, some day!” he retorted.

“I'd be a tougher customer than the bear to deal with!”
Mad answered.

And so they continued to jest, rather earnestly; little
guessing what realities, in the not far future, their blind words
were blundering upon.

“Pass me my rifle,” said Guy, standing waist-deep between
rocks, beneath which he had found a crevice that
would admit a gun-barrel. He took his piece, and carefully
thrust it down out of sight. “That muzzle isn't far from
Bruin's corner; and, if nobody has any better plan, I propose
to fire.”

“Archy says he can set a trap that'll catch him when he
comes out, if we'll wait,” said Jehiel.

But Guy preferred to try what virtue there was in powder,
and directed the men to range themselves, with levelled guns,
in readiness for the bear, in case he should be started.

“All ready!” said the men in a row.

Then Guy reached down to the rifle-lock, and touched it.

A subterranean report was heard, followed by a snarl of
rage and a plashing in the water; when instantly out from

his icy den rushed Bruin, right through the rank of hunters,
and into the brush, before a gun was fired.

The dogs were at him immediately, close and savage, but
doing him little harm, while they shielded him from shot.

“Well done, boys!” said Guy sarcastically. “Why
didn't you hold on to him, Aaron?”

“His hair was short,” said Aaron (who had fallen), awkwardly
regaining his feet and his gun.

The chase recommenced. Across the thicket's edge, and
aslant up the mountain-side, through stunted growths of
birch and fir, over waste spaces blackened by devastating
fires, stretching southward to higher and higher altitudes,
scaling ledges, breaking through briers and brushwood, went
the powerful and ferocious beast. He tossed the dogs from
him, and made them howl. Blackfoot went rolling with sharp
yelps down a bare shelf of rock, alighting in a tree-top. The
hunters climbed as best they could in the toilsome chase;
making a foothold of every root and stone, and often hauling
themselves up by the boughs of trees in steep places. As
they advanced, the mountain rounded, and travel became less
perilous and rough, until, a thousand feet above the valley, a
magnificent summit was attained.

Due east across the bald mountain-top Bruin journeyed;
then doubled towards the north, down a gradual descent, entering
a vast green wilderness, in the midst of which glimmered
a broken sheet of water. It was a mile-long lake,
stretching north and south along the hollow of the range; lifted
like a cup to the blue sky.

“If he swims that pond,” said Jehiel, “we shall lose him.
He is making straight for it!”

“And so are we,” answered Guy. “The dogs worry
him now: they have learned his style of fight. He is losing
blood fast! We are gaining on him! We shall shoot him in
the water!”

But, before the water was reached, Bruin, weary, wounded,
bewildered, having distanced the dogs for a moment, succumbed
to temptation. A friendly-seeming tree was at
hand. Was it a bright idea, or the last resort of a desperate,
disheartened bear, to hug that sturdy trunk in his arms, and
work his way up quickly beyond the reach of canine fangs?

It is done! Bruin is lodged in a maple crotch, twenty
feet from the ground, with a horrible, howling dog-dance beneath
him, when the hunters arrive.

“Don't shoot with that pop-gun, you idiot!” said Guy, as
Mad was about to fire his pistol at the black, shaggy mass
laid up along the limb. “Wait till the rest are ready, and
let all fire at once. He must be dead when he comes down,
or there'll be danger.”

Only Guy, Jehiel, and Aaron had kept up with them.
But now another appeared.

“Well done, Archy! What have you got in your gun?”

“Jehiel gi' me a musket-ball,” panted Archy.

“That's well. We won't wait for the rest. Choose your
positions.” All were soon ready. Four gun-barrels and a
pistol were aimed upwards. Guy gave the word: “One —
two — fire!”

The volley echoed through the woods. But only from the
pistol and two guns curled any smoke. Guy's and Jehiel's
pieces had missed fire. Bruin did not stir.

“Never touched him, by thunder!” exclaimed Mad.

“My musket never was worth a cent to shoot up with;
the flint won't throw fire into the pan,” said the vexed Jehiel.

Guy, having snapped again, impatiently tore the inexplosive
cap from his gun to replace it with a fresh one, still
keeping his eye on the bear.

“Stand from under!” he shouted to Mad. “He is beginning
to slide! Here he comes!”

Slowly slipped the shaggy mass from the limb, half revolving
in the air as it came down, and smiting the ground with
a resounding jar. The dogs darted aside, and leaped upon
him instantly. But, though momentarily stunned, neither his
wounds nor his tremendous fall had finished him. Turning
on his haunches, breathing snarls of rage, his mouth covered
with foam and gore, he flung right and left with paws and
jaws whenever he was attacked.

Guy levelled at his heart, and fired. Straight at him, on
the instant, rushed the infuriate beast. In vain the dogs
beset him. In vain Jehiel's musket, good for a level shot,
being newly primed, sent an ounce-ball into his neck. Guy
leaped behind a tree-trunk, and drew his knife.

“The fork!” said Jehiel; and, snatching it from Mad's
hands, he flew to the rescue, driving the tines deep into the
monster's flank.

That saved Guy. The bear turned. Bruce, encouraged
by the hunters, sprang at his throat. The next moment, the
rash dog was yelling in a deadly embrace. It would have
been all over with him soon; but Guy leaped upon the enemy
with his knife, which he buried to the hilt in his side.

The desperate animal, releasing Bruce, made a blind and
ineffectual dash at Guy, who sprang away, bearing his dripping
knife; then giving his tormentors a last look, pitiful to
witness but for the passionate eagerness with which they
sought the life dear even to a bear, he burst away from them
with all his remaining strength, and took to flight.

The dogs were now mostly disabled, and he scarcely heeded
their onsets. Obdurate, ferocious, drunken with rage and
wounds, he tore through the woods towards the lake, streaking
the ground with his blood. Jehiel followed him close
with the fork.

“Let him alone!” shouted Guy, reloading his rifle as he
ran. “He is a butchered bear: he'll die in the water.
Let him go!” for he knew well the danger, should the beast
in his last agony turn on his friend.

Jehiel desisted; and Bruin, reeling, snorting blood, wallowed
off into the water with the dogs.

At that moment a volley of feminine screams went up
from the shore, not far off. Guy looked in their direction,
and saw through the trees, on a point of the beach, a group
of women. They could hardly have reached that wild spot
by land; and the idea of a bo at immediately suggested itself.

He ran towards them out of the woods, and saw the thing he
wanted, drawn upon the sand. He called to them not to be
frightened, and sprang into it as he pushed it off. Jehiel
came after, plashing through the water, and threw himself
into the stern as it veered round.

A few swift strokes brought them to the scene of the bear's
final struggles. He was fighting the dogs in the water,
which all around him was bubbling, and stained with blood.
Jehiel took the oars; while Guy, stationed in the bow, prepared
to finish the fight. He first drew Blackfoot, half
drowned, out of the water. Then, to make a speedy end, he
placed his rifle-muzzle at the bear's head, and fired the last
shot. The slaughtered brute swam round and round, with
feeble plunges, in a streaked and foaming eddy, his loose
floating hair making him appear as large as two bears.

“It is over!” said Guy. He pierced the shaggy hide with
the fork, holding the head submerged, and pushing the
unwieldy carcass before them as Jehiel rowed shorewards.
Then, leaving his companions to drag it out upon the beach,
he rowed back to the point from which he had taken the
boat.

The ladies had by this time been joined by some gentlemen
from the woods; and Guy was astonished to find himself
among people he recognized.

A small number of spiritualists were having a picnic on
the lake-shore; and it seemed something more than chance

which had led him so unexpectedly and so strangely into the
very company which Lucy had made him solemnly promise
to avoid.

“Fatality!” he thought, as his eyes encountered those of
the seeress.