The Prairie Chief

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER NINE.

  A DARING EXPLOIT.

  To practised woodsmen like Whitewing and Big Tim it was as easy tofollow the track of Little Tim as if his steps had been taken throughnewly-fallen snow, although very few and slight were the marks left onthe green moss and rugged ground over which the hunter had passed.

  Six picked Indians accompanied the prairie chief, and these marched insingle file, each treading in the footsteps of the man in front with theutmost care.

  At first the party maintained absolute silence. Their way lay for somedistance along the margin of the brawling stream which drained the gorgeat the entrance of which Tim's Folly stood. The scenery around them waswild and savage in the extreme, for the higher they ascended, thenarrower became the gorge, and the masses of rock which had fallen fromthe frowning cliffs on either side had strewn the lower ground withshapeless blocks, and so impeded the natural flow of the little streamthat it became, as it were, a tormented and foaming cataract.

  At the head of the gorge the party came to a pass or height of land,through which they went with caution, for, although no footsteps of manhad thus far been detected by their keen eyes save those of Little Tim,it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that foes might be lurkingon the other side of the pass. No one, however, was discovered, andwhen they emerged at the other end of the pass it was plain that, as BigTim remarked, the coast was clear, for from their commanding positionthey could see an immeasurable distance in front of them, over anunencumbered stretch of land.

  The view from this point was indeed stupendous. The vision seemed torange not only over an almost limitless world of forests, lakes, andrivers--away to where the haze of the horizon seemed to melt with theminto space--but beyond that to where the great backbone of the New Worldrose sharp, clear, and gigantic above the mists of earth, until theyreached and mingled with the fleecy clouds of heaven. To judge fromtheir glittering eyes, even the souls of the not very demonstrativeIndians were touched by the scene. As for the prairie chief, who hadrisen to the perceptions of the new life in Christ he halted and stoodfor some moments as if lost in contemplation. Then, turning to theyoung hunter at his side, he said softly--

  "The works of the Lord are great."

  "Strange," returned Big Tim, "that you should use the very same wordsthat I've heard my daddy use sometimes when we've come upon a grand viewlike that."

  "Not so strange when I tell you," replied Whitewing, "that these arewords from the Book of Manitou, and that your father and I learned themtogether long ago from the preacher who now lies wounded in your hut."

  "Ay, ay! Daddy didn't tell me that. He's not half so given to serioustalk as you are, Whitewing, though I'm free to admit that he does take afit o' that sort now an' again, and seems raither fond of it. The factis, I don't quite understand daddy. He puzzles me."

  "Perhaps Leetil Tim is too much given to fun when he talks with BigTim," suggested the red chief gravely, but with a slight twinkle in hiseyes, which told that he was not quite destitute of Little Tim'sweakness--or strength, as the reader chooses.

  After a brief halt the party descended the slope which led to theelevated valley they had now reached, and, having proceeded a few miles,again came to a halt because the ground had become so rocky that thetrail of the hunter was lost.

  Ordering the young men to spread themselves over the ground, Whitewingwent with Big Tim to search over the ridge of a neighbouring eminence.

  "It is as I expected," he said, coming to a sudden stand, and pointingto a faint mark on the turf. "Leetil Tim has taken the short cut to theLopstick Hill, but I cannot guess the reason why."

  Big Tim was down on his knees examining the footprints attentively.

  "Daddy's futt, an' no mistake," he said, rising slowly. "I'd know theprint of his heel among a thousand. He's got a sort o' swagger of hisown, an' puts it down with a crash, as if he wanted to leave his markwherever he goes. I've often tried to cure him o' that, but he'sincurable."

  "I have observed," returned the chief, with, if possible, increasedgravity, "that many sons are fond of trying to cure their fathers; also,that they never succeed."

  Big Tim looked quickly at his companion, and laughed.

  "Well, well," he said, "the daddies have a good go at us in youth. It'sbut fair that we should have a turn at _them_ afterwards."

  A sharp signal from one of the young Indians in the distance interruptedfurther converse, and drew them away to see what he had discovered. Itwas obvious enough--the trail of the Blackfoot Indians retiring into themountains.

  At first Big Tim's heart sank, for this discovery, coupled with theprolonged absence of his father, suggested the fear that he had beenwaylaid and murdered. But a further examination led them to think--atleast to hope--that the savages had not observed the hunter's trail,owing to his having diverged at a point of the track further down, wherethe stony nature of the ground rendered trail-finding, as we have seen,rather difficult. Still, there was enough to fill the breasts of bothson and friend with anxiety, and to induce them to push on thereafterswiftly and in silence.

  Let us once again take flight ahead of them, and see what the object oftheir anxiety is doing.

  True to his promise to try his best, the dauntless little hunter hadproceeded alone, as before, to a part of the mountain region where heknew from past experience that grizzlies were to be easily found. Therehe made his preparations for a new effort on a different plan.

  The spot he selected for his enterprise was an open space on a bleakhillside, where the trees were scattered and comparatively small. Thislatter peculiarity--the smallness of the trees--was, indeed, the onlydrawback to the place, for few of them were large enough to bear hisweight, and afford him a secure protection from his formidable game. Atlast however, he found one,--not, indeed, quite to his mind, butsufficiently large to enable him to get well out of a bear's reach, forit must be remembered that although some bears climb trees easily, thegrizzly bear cannot climb at all. There was a branch on the lower partof the tree which seemed quite beyond the reach of the tallest bear evenon tiptoe.

  Having made his disposition very much as on the former occasion, LittleTim settled himself on this branch, and awaited the result.

  He did not, however, sit as comfortably as on the previous occasion, forthe branch was small and had no fork. Neither did he proceed to sup asformerly, for it was yet too early in the day to indulge in that meal.

  His plan this time was, not to net, but to lasso the bear; and for thatpurpose he had provided four powerful ropes made of strips of raw,undressed buffalo hide, plaited, with a running noose on each.

  "Now," said Little Tim, with a self-satisfied smirk, as he seatedhimself on the branch and surveyed the four ropes complacently, "it'llpuzzle the biggest b'ar in all the Rocky Mountains to break them ropes."

  Any one acquainted with the strength of the material which Tim began touncoil would have at once perceived that the lines in question mighthave held an elephant or a small steamer.

  "I hope," murmured Tim, struggling with a knot in one of the cords thatbound the coils, "I hope I'll be in luck to-day, an' won't have to waitlong."

  Little Tim's hope reached fruition sooner than he had expected--soonereven than he desired--for as he spoke he heard a rustle in the bushesbehind him. Looking round quickly, he beheld "the biggest b'ar, out o'sight, that he had iver seen in all his life." So great was hissurprise--we would not for a moment call it alarm--that he let slip thefour coils of rope, which fell to the ground.

  Grizzly bears, it must be known, are gifted with insatiable curiosity,and they are not troubled much with the fear of man, or, indeed, ofanything else. Hearing the thud of the coils on the ground, thismonster grizzly walked up to and smelt them. He was proceeding to tastethem, when, happening to cast his little eyes upwards, he beheld LittleTim sitting within a few feet of his head. To rise on his hind legs,and solicit a nearer interview, was the work of a moment. To the poorhunter's alarm, when he s
tretched his tremendous paws and claws to theirutmost he reached to within a foot of the branch. Of course Little Timknew that he was safe, but he was obliged to draw up his legs and layout on the branch, which brought his head and eyes horribly near to thenose and projecting tongue of the monster.

  To make matters worse, Tim had left his gun leaning against the stem ofthe tree. He had his knife and hatchet in his belt, but these he knewtoo well were but feeble weapons against such a foe. Besides, hisobject was not to slay, but to secure.

  Seeing that there was no possibility of reaching the hunter by means ofmere length of limb, and not at that time having acquired the art ofbuilding a stone pedestal for elevating purposes, the bear dropped onits four legs and looked round. Perceiving the gun, it went leisurelyup and examined it. The examination was brief but effective. It gavethe gun only one touch with its paw, but that touch broke the lock andstock and bent the barrel so as to render the weapon useless.

  Then it returned to the coil of ropes, and, sitting down, began to chewone of them, keeping a serious eye, however, on the branch above.

  It was a perplexing situation even for a backwoodsman. The branch onwhich Tim lay was comfortable enough, having many smaller branches andtwigs extending from it on either side, so that he did not require tohold on very tightly to maintain his position. But he was fully awareof the endurance and patience of grizzly bears, and knew that, havingnothing else to do, this particular Bruin could afford to bide his time.

  And now the ruling characteristic of Little Tim beset him severely. Hishead felt like a bombshell of fermenting ingenuity. Every device,mechanical and otherwise, that had ever passed through his brain sincechildhood, seemed to rush back upon him with irresistible violence inhis hopeless effort to conceive some plan by which to escape from hispresent and pressing difficulty--he would not, even to himself, admitthat there was danger. The more hopeless the case appeared to him, theless did reason and common-sense preside over the fermentation. When hesaw his gun broken, his first anxiety began. When he reflected on thepersistency of grizzlies in watching their foes, his naturally buoyantspirits began to sink and his native recklessness to abate. When he sawthe bear begin steadily to devour one of the lines by which he had hopedto capture it, his hopes declined still more; and when he considered thedistance he was from his hut, the fact that his provision wallet hadbeen left on the ground along with the gun, and that the branch on whichhe rested was singularly unfit for a resting-place on which to pass manyhours, he became wildly ingenious, and planned to escape, not only bypitching his cap to some distance off so as to distract the bear'sattention, and enable him to slip down and run away, but by devisingmethods of effecting his object by clockwork, fireworks, wings,balloons--in short, by everything that ever has, in the history ofdesign, enabled men to achieve their ends.

  His first and simplest method, to fling his cap away, was indeed so farsuccessful that it did distract the bear's attention for a moment, butit did not disturb his huge body, for he sat still, chewing his buffaloquid leisurely, and, after a few seconds, looked up at his victim asthough to ask, "What d'you mean by that?"

  When, after several hours, all his attempts had failed, poor Little Timgroaned in spirit, and began to regret his having undertaken the job;but a sense of the humorous, even in that extremity, caused him to givevent to a short laugh as he observed that Bruin had managed to getseveral feet of the indigestible rope down his throat, and fancied whata surprise it would give him if he were to get hold of the other end ofthe rope and pull it all out again.

  At last night descended on the scene, making the situation much moreunpleasant, for the darkness tended to deceive the man as to the motionsof the brute, and once or twice he almost leaped off the branch underthe impression that his foe had somehow grown tall enough to reach him,and was on the point of seizing him with his formidable claws. To addto his troubles, hunger came upon Tim about his usual supper-time, andwhat was far worse, because much less endurable, sleep put in a powerfulclaim to attention. Indeed this latter difficulty became so great thathunger, after a time, ceased to trouble him, and all his faculties--eventhe inventive--were engaged in a tremendous battle with this good oldfriend, who had so suddenly been converted into an implacable foe. Morethan once that night did Little Tim, despite his utmost efforts, fallinto a momentary sleep, from which each time he awoke with a convulsivestart and sharp cry, to the obvious surprise of Bruin, who, beingawakened out of a comfortable nap, looked up with a growl inquiringly,and then relapsed.

  When morning broke, it found the wretched man still clutching his uneasycouch, and blinking like an owl at the bear, which still lay comfortablyon the ground below him. Unable to stand it any longer, Tim resolved tohave a short nap, even if it should cost him his life. With this end inview, he twined his arms and legs tightly round his branch. The veryact reminded him that his worsted waistbelt might be twined round bothbody and branch, for it was full two yards long. Wondering that it hadnot occurred to him before, he hastily undid it, lashed himself to thebranch as well as he could, and in a moment was sound asleep. Thisdevice would have succeeded admirably had not one of his legs slowlydropped so low down as to attract the notice of the bear when it awoke.Rising to its full height on its hind legs, and protruding its tongue tothe utmost, it just managed to touch Tim's toe. The touch acted likedan electric spark, awoke him at once, and the leg was drawn promptly up.

  But Tim had had a nap, and it is wonderful how brief a slumber willsuffice to restore the energies of a man in robust health. He unlashedhimself.

  "Good mornin' to 'ee," he said, looking down. "You're there yet, Isee."

  He finished the salutation with a loud yawn, and stretched himself sorecklessly that he almost fell off the branch into the embrace of hisexpectant foe. Then he looked round, and, reason having been restored,hit upon a plan of escape which seemed to him hopeful.

  We have said that the space he had selected was rather open, but therewere scattered over it several large masses of rock, about the size ofan ordinary cart, which had fallen from the neighbouring cliffs. Fourof these stood in a group at about fifty yards' distance from his tree.

  "Now, old Caleb," he said, "I'll go in for it, neck or nothin'. Youtasted my toes this mornin'. Would you like to try 'em again?"

  He lowered his foot as he spoke, as far down as he could reach. Thebear accepted the invitation at once, rose up, protruded his tongue asbefore, and just managed to touch the toe. Now it is scarcely needfulto say that a strong man leading the life of a hunter in the RockyMountains is an athlete. Tim thought no more of swinging himself upinto a tree by the muscular power of his arms than you would think ofstepping over a narrow ditch. When the bear was standing in its mostupright attitude, he suddenly swung down, held on to the branch with hishands, and drove both his feet with such force against the bear's chinthat it lost its balance and fell over backwards with an angry growl.At the same moment Tim dropped to the ground, and made for the fallenrocks at a quicker rate than he had ever run before. Bruin scrambled tohis feet with amazing agility, looked round, saw the fugitive, and gavechase. Darting past the first rock, it turned, but Little Tim, ofcourse, was not there. He had doubled round the second, and takenrefuge behind the third mass of rock.

  Waiting a moment till the baffled bear went to look behind another rock,he ran straight back again to his tree, hastily gathered up his ropes,and reascended to his branch, where the bear found him again not manyminutes later.

  "Ha! HA! you old rascal!" he shouted, as he fastened the end of a ropefirmly to the branch, and gathered in the slack so as to have therunning noose handy. "I've got you now. Come, come along; have anothertaste of my toe!"

  This invitation was given when the bear stood in his former positionunder the tree and looked up. Once again it accepted the invitation,and rose to the hunter's toe as a salmon rises to an irresistible fly.

  "That's it! Now, hold on--just one moment. _There_!"

  As Tim finish
ed the sentence, he dropped the noose so deftly over thebear's head and paws that it went right down to his waist. This was anunlooked-for piece of good fortune. The utmost the hunter had hoped forwas to noose the creature round the neck. Moreover, it was done soquickly that the monster did not seem to fully appreciate what hadoccurred, but continued to strain and reach up at the toe in an imbecilesort of way. Instead, therefore, of drawing the noose tight, Little Timdropped a second noose round the monster's neck, and drew that tight.Becoming suddenly alive to its condition, the grizzly made a backwardplunge, which drew both ropes tight and nearly strangled it, while thebranch on which Tim was perched shook so violently that it was all hecould do to hold on.

  For full half an hour that bear struggled fiercely to free itself, andoften did the shaken hunter fear that he had miscalculated the strengthof his ropes, but they stood the test well, and, being elastic, acted insome degree like lines of indiarubber. At the end of that time the bearfell prone from exhaustion, which, to do him justice, was more theresult of semi-strangulation than exertion.

  This was what Little Tim had been waiting for and expecting. Quietlybut quickly he descended to the ground, but the bear saw him, partiallyrecovered, no doubt under an impulse of rage, and began to rear andplunge again, compelling his foe to run to the fallen rocks for shelter.When Bruin had exhausted himself a second time, Tim ran forward andseized the old net with which he had failed to catch the previous bear,and threw it over his captive. The act of course revived the livelymonster, but his struggles now wound him up into such a ravel with thetwo lines and the net that he was soon unable to get up or jump about,though still able to make the very earth around him tremble with hisconvulsive heaves. It was at once a fine as well as an awful display ofthe power of brute force and the strength of raw material!

  Little Tim would have admired it with philosophic interest if he had notbeen too busy dancing around the writhing creature in a vain effort tofix his third rope on a hind leg. At last an opportunity offered. Aleg burst one of the meshes of the net. Tim deftly slipped the nooseover it, and made the line fast to the tree. "Now," said he, wiping theperspiration from his brow, "you're safe, so I'll have a meal."

  And Little Tim, sitting down on a stone at a respectful distance,applied himself with zest to the cold breakfast of which he stood sovery much in need.

  He was thus occupied when his son with the prairie chief and his partyfound him.

  It would take at least another chapter to describe adequately the joy,surprise, laughter, gratulation, and comment which burst from the rescueparty on discovering the hunter. We therefore leave it to the reader'simagination. One of the young braves was at once sent off to find theagent and fetch him to the spot with his cage on wheels. The feat, withmuch difficulty, was accomplished. Bruin was forcibly and veryunwillingly thrust into the prison. The balance of the stipulated sumwas honourably paid on the spot, and now that bear is--or, if it is not,ought to be--in the Zoological Gardens of New York, London, or Paris,with a printed account of his catching, and a portrait of Little Timattached to the front of his cage!