Jack Among the Indians; Or, A Boy's Summer on the Buffalo Plains

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  CLOSE QUARTERS WITH A BEAR.

  It was not long after this that the camp moved eastward, and stoppednear the west end of the little group of mountains which rise out of therolling prairie, and which, Hugh told Jack, were known to to the Indiansas Bear's Hand. The summer was ended now and the nights were cool. Fromthe little prairie lakes and the infrequent streams, the travellersoften started flocks of ducks, and at night and in the early morning,the fine thin music caused by the swiftly beating wings of migratingwater fowl, reached their ears. Once or twice, Hugh had said to Jack,"Well, son, before long, we've got to be jogging. I reckon the best wayfor you to get home, and maybe for me too, is to take a boat down theMissouri River, if we can get one, until we strike a railroad, and thenyou can go East and I'll go West."

  "But, Hugh, what can we do with the horses? I don't want to leave Pawneeup here in the Indian camp, nor the new horse, and we can't take themwith us on the boat, can we?"

  "Well, I don't know," said Hugh, "we'll have to find out about that. Ireckon, unless they're pretty heavy loaded, they can find room for halfa dozen animals, and the way things look now, we've got money enough topay their passage. Anyhow, it's a different thing travelling over theprairie now, from what it was when we came up here. There's more danger,and I've been thinking we ought to cross over to Helena and go southfrom there through the mountains, and try to keep in the settlements allthe way. I heard tell last winter, that they were building a railroadfrom Salt Lake City up north to Helena, or somewhere near there, and ifwe could strike that, it would save us a heap of time. Anyway, I don'tintend to go South over the prairie, the way we came; that country, now,is likely full of Indians and we might get jumped 'most any time. We'llhave to wait till we get to Benton, to find out how things are, and Ireckon, pretty quick, we've got to pack up and go in there. I think thecamp is likely to move up on the Marias before long, and I'd rather staywith them than ride off alone with you."

  Since they had found it, their gold had caused Hugh and Jack muchanxiety. The sack which contained it, though apparently full of flourwas very much heavier than any of the other sacks of flour, and thedifference in weight would have caused any one who handled it, to wonderwhat it contained. They were careful, therefore, always to pack theirown horses, and to leave an open sack of flour among their things, inorder that, if John Monroe's wife wished to use any, she would go tothat, rather than open a fresh sack. So far, no one had any suspicion ofthe existence of the gold in the camp, and Hugh was anxious that no oneshould know of it, because there were several white men living with theIndians, about whom he knew very little.

  It was now September. Jack had been in the camp more than two months,and besides the old men that he had come to know, he had also made theacquaintance of a number of young fellows of about his own age. From Joeand Hugh, he had learned a few words of Piegan, so that, often, he couldunderstand what people were talking about, and sometimes mustered upcourage to speak a few words himself.

  One day, not long after his conversation with Hugh about returning home,the news was called out through the camp, that in three days the villagewould move over to Willow Rounds, on the Marias River, and would staythere a long time. When he heard this, Hugh told Jack that he thought itbest, that from there, they should go into Benton and try to go down theriver.

  That evening Joe came to the lodge and proposed that the next day theyshould go up into the Bear Paw Mountains, to hunt deer. "Three othersare going," he said, "Bull Calf, The Mink and Handsome Face. We ought togo early and I think we can kill some deer."

  "All right, Joe," said Jack, "I'll go, and be ready to start any timeyou say."

  "Well, then," said Joe, "let's go by the time the sun rises."

  Bright and early next morning, the party started and rode up themountain. It was not very long before they reached the pine timber, andsoon after, they separated into two parties, Bull Calf and The Minkgoing off on the south side of the hills, while Jack and Joe andHandsome Face kept up on the western slope.

  After riding through the timber for quite a long time, they came to somelittle parks, quite surrounded by timber, with pretty little streamsflowing through them, making, as Jack thought, the best possible feedinggrounds for deer. After they had passed through several of these withoutseeing any game, but finding plenty of tracks and old sign, Joe, who wasa little ahead, stopped his horse, raised his hand as a sign for theothers to wait, and slipped off on foot through the trees. In a very fewmoments, he had returned, and signing them to dismount and follow him,he led the way through the silent timber. All the boys wore moccasins,and treading with hunter's care, went along like so many ghosts. No twigsnapped under their feet, nor did they allow the branches or bushes toscrape against their legs. After a few moments quick walk, Joe turned,and making a sign for caution, dropped to his knees and crept throughthe low bushes to the edge of a little park. There, as they peeredthrough the leaves, they saw a pretty sight. Three yearling deer werefeeding slowly toward them, and were now not more than fifty yards away.They acted as if they had finished their breakfast, and did not seemhungry, but rather as if they were looking for a place to lie down. Theywould walk along for a few steps, and then one stopping, would nibble atthe grass, while the others kept on, and then, perhaps one of thesewould stop and be passed by the other two. In this careless fashion,they came up to within twenty-five or thirty yards of where the boysknelt, and then one of them suddenly folded his long, slender legs underhim and lay down. The others stood by him, one broadside to thewatchers, the other head on. Joe signed to Handsome Face, and then thetwo boys with arrows on the string, rose to their knees, and shottogether. Each of the two deer sprang high in the air, and coming down,looked about with raised head and alert ears. The deer that was lyingdown, stretched his head up high and looked at them, and then about it,but did not spring to its feet. The boys could see in each of the twostanding deer, the arrows buried nearly to the feathers. In a moment,the deer at which Handsome Face had shot, fell on the ground, and Joe'sdeer immediately afterward lay down.

  Jack whispered to Joe, "Shall I kill the other?"

  "Yes," said Joe, "kill him, sure." Jack took steady aim at the slenderneck showing above the grass, and fired, and the deer's headdisappeared.

  "Well," said Jack, as the boys rose to their feet, and walked out towardthe animals, "that seems to me like butchering. Of course we can use themeat, and we need the hides, but I don't think there's much fun inkilling game that's as tame as that."

  "Pooh," said Joe, "if they'd heard us, or smelt us, you wouldn't thinkthey were tame; they'd have run off mighty fast, and we fellows thathave arrows wouldn't have got a shot at them at all."

  While Joe and Jack were butchering, Handsome Face went off into thetimber, and soon returned with their horses. The deer were loaded on theanimals, and they started to return to camp.

  After they had begun to descend the mountain, they passed into a long,sloping valley, and here, as they were riding along, Jack discoveredthat the ground was covered with low huckleberry bushes, abundantlyloaded with fruit. A halt was called, and the boys dismounted, and forhalf an hour were busily engaged picking and eating the deliciousberries. While they were doing this, the sky clouded over and it beganto rain a little. They mounted again and kept on down the hill, andpresently, riding up onto a long-hog back, stopped there to look off tothe southward and see whether they could discover their companions. Tothe south of this ridge was another valley, similar to the one that theyhad been going down. By this time the rain had stopped, but the sky wasstill overcast. The boys lay there on the ground, talking and waiting;suddenly Handsome Face stretched out his hand and touching Jack's arm,said, "_Aamo, Aamo, Kyiyu_,"--look, look, bears. The boys turned theirheads in the direction that he was looking, and saw, far off in thevalley to the south of them, three bears that had just come in sightfrom behind a little ridge. One was large and two small, and they werewalking about in an aimless way that Jack did not understand.

>   "What are they?" he asked.

  "Bears," said Joe; "old one and two cubs, pickin' berries." Jackrealised now, that the bears as they walked here and there, and stuckout their noses, were gathering huckleberries, just as he had been doinga little while before.

  "How'll we get them, Joe?" he asked.

  "I don't know," said Joe. "Got to wait." Then he spoke some words toHandsome face, who answered him, and Joe went on speaking to Jack:"Handsome Face says, wait a little while and they'll go behind a hilland then we can get on our horses and ride down there and run them."

  The boys lay there, a good deal excited, not daring to move, and fearingconstantly that the old bear would see the horses and run away. But ifshe saw them, she must have thought they were buffalo, for she paid noheed to them, but went on with the young ones, picking berries.

  At length, both the smaller bears passed out of sight, and then a littlelater, the old one. The boys crept on all fours to their horses, untiedthe deer and threw them to the ground. Jack tightened his saddle girths,and all three mounting passed down the hill towards the bears.

  As they descended into the valley, the ridges, which from the height hadseemed so low, began to appear higher, and to assume the proportions ofquite respectable hills. Jack thought that he had marked the place wherethe bears disappeared, with some care, but before long, made up his mindthat he had quite lost it. Joe and Handsome Face, however, rode steadilyforward, as if they knew just where the place was, as of course theydid. The advance was brisk, yet the boys did not gallop, and went ascarefully as possible. Pretty soon, Jack could see that they must begetting near the place, for the boys used still greater caution, and atlength, Joe stopped, slipped off his horse and went ahead on foot, whileHandsome Face and Jack remained behind. When Joe looked over the ridge,he saw nothing, and remounting, they passed on to the next one, where hetook another look. Coming back very cautiously, he whispered: "They arejust over the ridge; we can rush on them from there." From the top ofthe ridge they could see the three bears, unsuspicious as yet, and nomore than fifty yards away, and as soon as they saw them, the threedashed forward at top speed.

  "HE HAD NO TIME TO THINK, HARDLY TO MOVE."--_Page 280_]

  Jack expected that Pawnee would be able to run away from the otherhorses, and he made up his mind that he would try for the old bear; buthe found that the horse that Handsome Face was riding, was as swift asPawnee, and the two kept along about even, both trying to overtake themother. It was a race as well as a chase. At first the way was down hilland there, they did not in the least gain on the bear, but in a momentshe began to climb the hill, and then they closed up on her rapidly.Handsome Face had his bow strung and a sheaf of arrows in his hand, andwas making ready to let fly. It was impossible for Jack to shoot, asHandsome Face was directly between him and the bear, the boys ridingnearly side by side, and only a few feet apart. All the while they weredrawing up close to the bear; rather closer, as Jack thought, than wassafe; but he had no time to think about this. Suddenly, Handsome Facedrew an arrow to the head and shot, and almost as he did so, the bearwhirled and charged directly toward the two boys. Handsome Face's horseturned at right angles, to rush away, and striking Pawnee with his chestjust behind the shoulders, knocked him off his feet, so that he fellflat on his side. As the horse went down, Jack jumped, alighting on hisfeet, but staggering three or four steps before he recovered hisbalance. He had not let go his gun. He turned to look to see where thebear was, and as he did so, he saw, almost upon him, a huge mass of hairand gleaming white teeth, flying toward him. He had no time to think,hardly to move. He threw up his gun, fired, tried to jump back out ofthe way, but his heel caught; something struck him a violent blow, andhe knew nothing more.

  All this time, Joe, whose horse was slower, had fallen behind theothers, whipping and kicking with his heels, trying to keep up. Thecharge of the bear at right angles to her course, had enabled him togain quite a little bit, so that when the beast threw itself on Jack, hewas but a few yards off. He flung himself to the ground, and rushing upclose to the side of the bear, shot arrow after arrow into its heart,until all his shafts were gone. It did not leave its prey, and throwingaway his bow, he drew his knife, sprang upon the bear and thrust theblade again and again into its body behind the shoulder. Still it didnot move; there was no response, not even a quiver of the muscle, andsuddenly Joe realised that the bear was dead. He sprang to its head andcatching the beast by its great ears, dragged its head off Jack's faceand breast and called aloud to Handsome Face, who by this time hadreturned, "Hurry, hurry, let us help him if we can." The boys managed todrag the bear off Jack, who presented a shocking spectacle. His head,breast and shoulders were covered with blood, but he was not quite dead,for they could see the breath from his nostrils bubbling through theblood. Pulling him up a little way from the bear, they began to feel ofhim to see whether he was hurt, but in a minute they both broke down.Joe cried bitterly, saying, "Oh! My friend, my friend. I have lost myfriend," while Handsome Face began to sing a very melancholy song. Itwas a sad time for both boys.

  Suddenly, as they were crying, Jack sat up and said, "What's the matter?Oh! I know." Both Indian boys sprang to their feet and stared at him,for a moment, and then Joe, throwing himself on his knees behind him,put his arms around Jack, gave him a great hug. "Oh!" he said, "you'renot dead, I thought you were dead. Are you hurt? Did the bear strikeyou?"

  "No," said Jack, "I guess there's nothing the matter with me, exceptthat I feel stupid and my head aches."

  Joe and Handsome Face now felt Jack all over and he seemed to be unhurtanywhere except that on the back of his head, there was a great bruisewhich was bleeding a little. The blood, on his head and breast, was thatof the bear, and when they went to the body and looked at it, they foundthat by the merest accident in his shooting, Jack's life had been saved.The ball had struck the bear in the end of the nose and had passed upthrough the air passages into the brain, causing instant death. Theanimal had been so close to Jack when he shot, that death did not stopher advance, and the whole weight of her body thrown against Jack hadknocked him violently to the ground; his head had struck a small stoneand the blow had cut and stunned him. Except for a headache, he was aswell as he had ever been.

  Jack, for a little while, sat on the ground and nursed his aching head,while Handsome Face and Joe worked at the bear, taking off the skin. Thetwo were very merry, and chattered and sang. Joe, in the exuberance ofhis spirits, made fun of Jack for having been thrown off his horse andknocked down by the bear, and altogether, was a very different Joe fromthe one who had been sobbing on the hillside only a few minutes before.

  Before long the two boys had the bear skinned, and loaded on one of thehorses. Then Handsome Face and Joe went back to the ridge where they hadleft the deer, put them on the horses and returning to Jack, the partystarted for the village. No one seemed to know what had become of thetwo bear cubs. During the excitement that attended the chase of themother, the little fellows had disappeared. Handsome Face said thatPawnee had no sooner struck the ground than he had bounded to his feetagain and had done this so quickly that he had got out of the bear'sway.

  Just as they reached the prairie, they heard shouts behind them, andlooking back, saw Bull Calf and The Mink galloping toward them, eachwith a load behind him on his horse. When they came up, it was seen thatBull Calf had a young bear and The Mink a deer and when their storieshad been told by both parties, it was learned that this little bear hadrun over the ridge and down toward the Indian boys who were coming downthe mountain, and they had chased it and killed it with their arrows.Certainly, this had been a lucky hunt; four deer and two bears for fiveboys!

  At a little brook, they crossed on their homeward way, Jack dismountedand washed from himself as much blood of the bear as he could, and afterthat felt much more comfortable, so that before camp was reached, thoughhis head still ached badly, he felt quite like himself again.

  That night, in the lodge, when he told Hugh the story of the day, theold man f
ound fault with him for carelessness and bad judgment.

  "You hadn't never ought to ride close beside any man that's trying tokill on horse-back. If it's buffalo or bear, it's all the same. If hehas to turn off quick, he'll either ride into you or right ahead of youand get in your way. Besides that, you can't shoot at anything if a manis between you and the game, and yet you're riding along side of himwith a loaded gun, likely as not pointing right at him, and if you'reanyway careless, you're likely to pull it off and maybe kill him. Thereain't no game that it's worth taking them risks for. Just as soon as youfound that your horse was not good enough to pass the boy's, you oughtto have fell behind and waited; you might know that that bear wouldn'tbe killed by an arrow, and that your chance would come. Of course, therehave been times when bears have been killed by arrows, old Pis'kun,here, killed a big grizzly once that way, but a thing like that don'thappen once in a dog's age; that's one reason why Indians are so afraidof bears.

  "In the old times, when they had nothing but arrows, they couldn't killbears at all, and lots of men that tried it got killed off. It's onlysince the Indians got some good guns, that they have killed any bears toamount to anything."

  "Well, Hugh, I see now, since you explained it to me, that I was prettystupid, but I didn't think about any of these things," said Jack.

  "No, I don't reckon you did. You are a boy of course, and boys have akind of habit of not thinking, but just running in and doing things, andnot figuring on what may happen afterward. I'm mighty glad I wasn't withyou, for I reckon if I had been, I'd a been scared a plenty."

  "Well, but then, if you had been with us I guess it wouldn't havehappened. You'd probably have called out to me and I'd have likely donewhat you said."

  "Well, yes, maybe so. I'll say this for you," he went on, "that you'vegot a lot more sense than most boys I've seen."

  "I ought to be learning something with all the things you tell me, andall the different kinds of trouble I keep getting into all the time."

  "Well, you won't have much chance to get into any more troubles,because, now we are going to move back to the Marias, and then you andme, and maybe Joe will go into Benton and tend to our little businessthere, and then go down the river."

  "Well," said Jack, "I'm mighty sorry to have the summer ended; I neverhad such a good time in my life. I thought last year, when I went back,that I never could have as good a time again, but this is better."