The Outdoor Chums After Big Game Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness

CHAPTER VII

THE GRIZ­ZLY AT BAY

“Boys, do you want to see some fun?” called the ranch­man as he came up.

“Al­ways ready for that sort of thing, sir. What's go­ing on?” asked Frank.

“An old friend of ours, whom we call 'Moun­tain Char­lie,' has bro­ken bounds at last, and is even now try­ing to drag one of my best year­lings off to the moun­tain canyon where he has his den,” replied the oth­er.

“Moun­tain Char­lie?” re­peat­ed Frank, mys­ti­fied.

“And has a den in the moun­tains, too! What sort of a beast is that? Or can it be a wild man?” asked Bluff.

The ranch­man laughed hearti­ly.

“I for­got you were ten­der­feet, boys. We call a griz­zly by that name out here. This fel­low we have known for some time. Hunt­ing him has nev­er proven a prof­itable busi­ness, and, as a rule, he has nev­er be­fore come so far out in the open; but hunger tempt­ed the old chap, and the man who gal­loped in told me he was even then drag­ging the year­ling he had killed in the di­rec­tion of the hills.”

“Oh! if we could on­ly get there in time to see them shoot him!” ex­claimed Will, hitch­ing his cam­era a lit­tle clos­er to his body.

“That's just what you're go­ing to see. I sent word that he was not to be hurt un­til we ar­rived. Hors­es are be­ing hitched up for us all. I sup­pose you can ride, boys?” in­quired the own­er of the ranch.

“To a cer­tain ex­tent, though I sup­pose your cow­boys will think us pret­ty punky at it,” an­swered Jer­ry.

“But we mean to learn ev­ery­thing we can while here,” piped up Bluff earnest­ly.

“Good for you! These hors­es are on­ly old plugs, how­ev­er, so there's no fear of them run­ning away with you; and here they come.”

Sev­er­al cow­boys came to­ward them, each lead­ing a num­ber of hors­es. Frank thought that for “old plugs,” the four in­tend­ed for him­self and chums pos­sessed con­sid­er­able of the fire that had an­imat­ed them in oth­er years.

“Up you go, boys. Take your pick. Then we're off.”

Each seized up­on the near­est an­imal, and, mak­ing use of the stir­rup, threw him­self in­to the sad­dle. As Jer­ry had said, all of them had fre­quent­ly rid­den at home, and in­deed con­sid­ered that they knew as much about a sad­dle as the av­er­age boy of the East; but that amount­ed to very lit­tle out here, where ev­ery one al­most lived up­on the back of a bron­cho.

“Wow! But this is go­ing some!” said Jer­ry as the whole group dashed mad­ly up the val­ley.

“I on­ly hope I don't lose my cam­era in the rush,” came from Will, who was hav­ing trou­bles of his own in the rear.

“Look ahead, fel­lows! You can see what's go­ing on, now!” called Frank, who kept along­side the ranch­man in the lead.

“Why, there's the bear, as sure as you live!” Bluff gasped.

“But what's he try­ing to do? First he rush­es one way, and then turns around to make a bolt at the oth­er side. He must be get­ting rat­tled.”

“Don't you see, Jer­ry, they've got him las­soed? He wants to tack­le any one of those three cow­boys, but he just can't, with as many ropes pulling him in three di­rec­tions.”

“Talk to me about that, will you, Frank!” cried Jer­ry. “I nev­er ex­pect­ed to see a griz­zly bear held up in a rope like a steer. Look at the game lit­tle ponies on their haunch­es, and hold­ing like fun. They seem some­what scared, too, pard. Be­tween you and me, I don't blame 'em a bit. I'd hate to think that big beast was aim­ing to get a grip on me.”

It was just as Jer­ry said. The cow­boys had head­ed the griz­zly off so that he was un­able to gain the safe­ty of the wild moun­tain gorges. Doubt­less he had been loth to leave his prey at the ap­proach of the rid­ers, and this had con­tribut­ed to his fi­nal un­do­ing.

One af­ter an­oth­er three of them had dropped their ropes over the head of the griz­zly as he reared him­self on his hind legs. The lar­iats stretched like pi­ano wires un­der the strain, and as the cow­boys had tak­en up po­si­tions in a sort of tri­an­gle they could keep the bear from mak­ing any sort of rush.

“Watch and see the fun,” said Mr. Ma­bie, who had made sure to fetch his ri­fle along when com­ing from the ranch house; but he did not seem in any hur­ry to uti­lize the same.

Will, of course, im­me­di­ate­ly made good use of his cam­era.

Mean­while, wilder grew the ex­er­tions of the trapped griz­zly. He was snarling with rage. The foam gath­ered about his mouth, and Frank shud­dered as he saw the cru­el teeth, not to speak of the long, dead­ly and poi­sonous claws.

“Hey, Bluff! If you on­ly had that gen­tle lit­tle knife of yours handy, now would be a fine chance to rush in and have a tus­sle with that meek griz­zly! You know you told us all just how you meant to slay the jab­ber­cock with one straight blow.”

Bluff did not make any ver­bal re­ply to this un­kind thrust on the part of Jer­ry, but Frank, look­ing at him, saw that his face was dead­ly pale, and that he was star­ing at the ter­ri­ble mon­ster with whom the reck­less cow­boys were play­ing as a cat does with a mouse. He knew Bluff was feel­ing a chill at the thought of such a tragedy hap­pen­ing as his hav­ing an en­counter with a beast like that.

“What if the ropes should break?” asked Frank as the cap­tive made a more fe­ro­cious rush than usu­al, and the pony on the oth­er side was dragged sev­er­al feet.

“Then there would be some­what of a mix-​up, and a case of ev­ery man for him­self. They'd ex­pect me to show that I hadn't al­to­geth­er for­got­ten my craft in con­nec­tion with han­dling a ri­fle. Once I used to be a crack shot, but lack of ex­pe­ri­ence plays hob with a man's nerves,” replied Mr. Ma­bie, as he sat up­on his steed and played with the re­peat­ing ri­fle he held.

“I see you are en­joy­ing the sit­ua­tion, boys. Would one of you like to wind him up?” and the ranch­man turned to Frank.

“I don't be­lieve I would, sir,” laughed that wor­thy.

“How about you, Jer­ry?”

“I've of­ten dreamed of shoot­ing such game, but ex­cuse me, Mr. Ma­bie, it would be too much like the butch­er busi­ness to please me,” ob­served the oth­er.

At this the stock­man laughed.

“Oh, I can un­der­stand that prin­ci­ple of hon­or in a true sports­man, my lad, and I must say it does you cred­it; but when you come to know griz­zlies bet­ter, and ap­pre­ci­ate their ter­ri­ble strength, you'll agree with the rest of us that a man has to for­get such things when he gets a chance to punc­ture the hide of so fierce a mon­ster as this old rogue. He could kill a horse with a sin­gle blow, or tear one in­to shreds with those claws. If I can get my mount to go a lit­tle clos­er, I'll try to wind him up with a sin­gle ball, but it's dif­fi­cult to shoot from the back of a ner­vous pony.”

He be­gan to speak to his steed, which was strik­ing the turf with its hoofs, and champ­ing at the bit, as if ter­ri­fied at such close prox­im­ity to, an an­imal so great­ly to be dread­ed.

Then sud­den­ly there was a wild shout from the cow­boys, and Frank, look­ing, saw one of them whirling his horse in wild flight, and dash­ing to­ward the group. He seemed to guess in­stinc­tive­ly what had hap­pened--the rope of the op­po­site rid­er must have bro­ken un­der the tremen­dous strain. This re­al­ly left the griz­zly free, and, filled with mad rage, he was gal­lop­ing straight to­ward them!