Dutch Courage and Other Stories
Page 9
BALD-FACE
"Talkin' of bear----"
The Klondike King paused meditatively, and the group on the hotel porchhitched their chairs up closer.
"Talkin' of bear," he went on, "now up in the Northern Country there arevarious kinds. On the Little Pelly, for instance, they come down thatthick in the summer to feed on the salmon that you can't get an Indianor white man to go nigher than a day's journey to the place. And upin the Rampart Mountains there's a curious kind of bear called the'side-hill grizzly.' That's because he's traveled on the side-hills eversince the Flood, and the two legs on the down-hill side are twice aslong as the two on the up-hill. And he can out-run a jack rabbit when hegets steam up. Dangerous? Catch you! Bless you, no. All a man has to dois to circle down the hill and run the other way. You see, that throwsmister bear's long legs up the hill and the short ones down. Yes, he's amighty peculiar creature, but that wasn't what I started in to tellabout.
"They've got another kind of bear up on the Yukon, and his legs are allright, too. He's called the bald-face grizzly, and he's jest as big ashe is bad. It's only the fool white men that think of hunting him.Indians got too much sense. But there's one thing about the bald-facethat a man has to learn: he never gives the trail to mortal creature.If you see him comin', and you value your skin, you get out of his path.If you don't, there's bound to be trouble. If the bald-face met JehovahHimself on the trail, he'd not give him an inch. O, he's a selfishbeggar, take my word for it. But I had to learn all this. Didn't knowanything about bear when I went into the country, exceptin' when I was ayoungster I'd seen a heap of cinnamons and that little black kind. Andthey was nothin' to be scared at.
"Well, after we'd got settled down on our claim, I went up on the hilllookin' for a likely piece of birch to make an ax-handle out of. Butit was pretty hard to find the right kind, and I kept a-goin' and kepta-goin' for nigh on two hours. Wasn't in no hurry to make my choice, yousee, for I was headin' down to the Forks, where I was goin' to borrow alog-bit from Old Joe Gee. When I started, I'd put a couple of sour-doughbiscuits and some sowbelly in my pocket in case I might get hungry.And I'm tellin' you that lunch came in right handy before I was donewith it.
"Bime-by I hit upon the likeliest little birch saplin', right in themiddle of a clump of jack pine. Jest as I raised my hand-ax I happenedto cast my eyes down the hill. There was a big bear comin' up, swingin'along on all fours, right in my direction. It was a bald-face, butlittle I knew then about such kind.
"'Jest watch me scare him,' I says to myself, and I stayed out of sightin the trees.
"Well, I waited till he was about a hundred feet off, then out I runsinto the open.
"'Oof! oof!' I hollered at him, expectin' to see him turn tail likechain lightning.
"Turn tail? He jest throwed up his head for one good look and came acomin'.
"'Oof! oof!' I hollered, louder'n ever. But he jest came a comin'.
"'Consarn you!' I says to myself, gettin' mad. 'I'll make you jump thetrail.'
"So I grabs my hat, and wavin' and hollerin' starts down the trail tomeet him. A big sugar pine had gone down in a windfall and lay aboutbreast high. I stops jest behind it, old bald-face comin' all the time.It was jest then that fear came to me. I yelled like a Comanche Indianas he raised up to come over the log, and fired my hat full in his face.Then I lit out.
"Say! I rounded the end of that log and put down the hill at atwo-twenty clip, old bald-face reachin' for me at every jump. At thebottom was a broad, open flat, quarter of a mile to timber and full ofniggerheads. I knew if ever I slipped I was a goner, but I hit only thehigh places till you couldn't a-seen my trail for smoke. And the olddevil snortin' along hot after me. Midway across, he reached for me,jest strikin' the heel of my moccasin with his claw. Tell you I wasdoin' some tall thinkin' jest then. I knew he had the wind of me and Icould never make the brush, so I pulled my little lunch out of my pocketand dropped it on the fly.
"Never looked back till I hit the timber, and then he was mouthing thebiscuits in a way which wasn't nice to see, considerin' how close he'dbeen to me. I never slacked up. No, sir! Jest kept hittin' the trail forall there was in me. But jest as I came around a bend, heelin' it rightlively I tell you, what'd I see in middle of the trail before me, andcomin' my way, but another bald-face!
"'Whoof!' he says when he spotted me, and he came a-runnin.'
"Instanter I was about and hittin' the back trail twice as fast as I'dcome. The way this one was puffin' after me, I'd clean forgot all aboutthe other bald-face. First thing I knew I seen him mosying along kind ofeasy, wonderin' most likely what had become of me, and if I tasted asgood as my lunch. Say! when he seen me he looked real pleased. And thenhe came a-jumpin' for me.
"'Whoof!' he says.
"'Whoof!' says the one behind me.
"Bang I goes, slap off the trail sideways, a-plungin' and a-clawin'through the brush like a wild man. By this time I was clean crazed;thought the whole country was full of bald-faces. Next thing Iknows--whop, I comes up against something in a tangle of wild blackberrybushes. Then that something hits me a slap and closes in on me. Anotherbald-face! And then and there I knew I was gone for sure. But I made upto die game, and of all the rampin' and roarin' and rippin' and tearin'you ever see, that was the worst.
"'My God! O my wife!' it says. And I looked and it was a man I washammering into kingdom come.
"'Thought you was a bear,' says I.
"He kind of caught his breath and looked at me. Then he says, 'Samehere.'
"Seemed as though he'd been chased by a bald-face, too, and had hid inthe blackberries. So that's how we mistook each other.
"But by that time the racket on the trail was something terrible, and wedidn't wait to explain matters. That afternoon we got Joe Gee and somerifles and came back loaded for bear. Mebbe you won't believe me, butwhen we got to the spot, there was the two bald-faces lyin' dead. Yousee, when I jumped out, they came together, and each refused to givetrail to the other. So they fought it out. Talkin' of bear. As I wassayin'----"