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

CHAPTER VIII

BLUFF MISS­ES SOME­THING

“Look out there!” shout­ed one of the cow­boys.

“Run, boys!” ex­claimed Frank as he start­ed to turn his pony around so as to get be­yond reach of the rapid­ly ad­vanc­ing bear.

He had just suc­ceed­ed in do­ing this, and even start­ed to gal­lop away, when he saw a sight that al­most froze the blood in his veins.

Jer­ry had, of course, in­tend­ed do­ing a sim­ilar va­moos­ing stunt. It hap­pened, how­ev­er, that his horse was more fright­ened than those of the oth­ers. When he jerked at the bri­dle the beast whirled with such a vi­cious fling that the boy, to­tal­ly un­pre­pared for such a move, and un­able to get the grip with his knees that a cow­boy al­ways se­cures, went top­pling over his head.

Frank, look­ing over his shoul­der as he was borne rapid­ly away by his own alarmed steed, saw Jer­ry scram­ble to his knees. At any rate, he thought with re­lief, the oth­er had es­caped a bro­ken neck in his ug­ly tum­ble.

Still, with that en­raged griz­zly bear­ing swift­ly down up­on him, in spite of the one rope that still held taut, the po­si­tion of poor Jer­ry was not the most pleas­ant in the world.

Frank's first and on­ly in­spi­ra­tion was to turn his horse around and rush back to the as­sis­tance of his chum. It nev­er oc­curred to him that be­ing with­out his own ri­fle, he would on­ly be adding to the trou­ble by of­fer­ing Bru­in a dou­ble sac­ri­fice.

His pony, how­ev­er, of­fered se­ri­ous ob­jec­tions to fac­ing that roar­ing hur­ri­cane of a beast. De­spite Frank's most stren­uous ef­forts, he could on­ly twist the an­imal's head around, but not a step would the fright­ened beast ap­proach. Danc­ing there, he snort­ed his dis­trust and alarm.

But Frank plucked up new hope. He at the same time saw some­thing else that gave an­oth­er as­pect to the case. Jer­ry was not to be left alone to his fate.

“Hur­rah for Mr. Ma­bie!”

In his ex­cite­ment Frank let out this shout. It was caused by see­ing the ranch­man leap from the back of his own horse and rapid­ly run back to­ward the spot where Jer­ry crouched, ap­par­ent­ly too wind­ed to get to his feet and try flight.

Now Mr. Ma­bie had reached the boy, and the bar­ri­er of his heavy re­peat­ing ri­fle would be be­tween Jer­ry and the griz­zly. Frank ex­pect­ed to see the stock­man drop on one knee and take aim at the bear, now very close to the two dis­mount­ed ones. Noth­ing of the kind oc­curred. On the con­trary, he saw Mr. Ma­bie thrust the ri­fle in­to the hands of the boy, who seemed to seize it ea­ger­ly.

Jer­ry had de­clined to shoot the griz­zly when the beast was held by a cor­don of ri­atas. The con­di­tions were now con­sid­er­ably al­tered, for the huge an­imal was rapid­ly bear­ing down up­on him, with the fire of de­struc­tion in his small, blaz­ing eyes. It was a case of bring­ing his ad­vance to a speedy stop, or suf­fer­ing the con­se­quences.

Frank's heart thrilled with pride as he saw his chum throw the ri­fle up to his shoul­der and glance along the glis­ten­ing bar­rel. Mr. Ma­bie had shown won­der­ful con­fi­dence in the boy's nerve to thus place the so­lu­tion of the prob­lem in Jer­ry's hands.

Hold­ing his breath, as he still tugged at the mouth of his re­frac­to­ry mount, Frank saw the smoke shoot out from the muz­zle of the gun as the re­port sound­ed.

“Whoop! He's down!” shrieked a cow­boy curvet­ing near by.

“Take care! He's com­ing again, Jer­ry!” shout­ed Frank.

The bear had rolled over at the shot, but be­ing one of the tough­est an­imals in the world, he had im­me­di­ate­ly gained his feet again, and was once more ad­vanc­ing.

But Jer­ry knew what to do, even though he had nev­er met quar­ry of this cal­iber be­fore. He pumped an­oth­er car­tridge in­to the cham­ber, de­lib­er­ate­ly took aim, with ap­par­ent­ly lit­tle show of ex­cite­ment, and fired again.

Once more the griz­zly stum­bled and fell. When he tried to get up again he did not seem equal to the ef­fort.

Mr. Ma­bie was shak­ing the hand of the young Nim­rod with great en­thu­si­asm. Per­haps he had pur­pose­ly tried the nerve of Jer­ry, to find out what man­ner of boys these were, of whom old Jesse Wilcox spoke so well.

Now that the mon­ster was dead, the ponies con­sent­ed to draw some­what clos­er; but the boys had to dis­mount, and hand over their steeds to a cow­man when they wished to reach the spot where the vic­tim of the hunt lay.

Will, with his cam­era, was, of course, in ev­idence.

“I wouldn't have missed that for a cook­ie!” he de­clared. “And if that fright­ened horse had on­ly al­lowed me to take a crack at the time the old her­mit top­pled over, I'd be ev­er so much hap­pi­er.”

Frank, re­mem­ber­ing how the oth­er had been forced to clasp his arms around the neck of his fran­tic steed at the time, smiled at the im­pos­si­bil­ity of such a thing com­ing about.

“Give us a grip of your paw, old fel­low!” cried Bluff, rush­ing up, brim­ming over with en­thu­si­asm and ad­mi­ra­tion. “I'll sure nev­er for­get that sight! And he did the Rod, Gun and Cam­era Club proud when he used your weapon, didn't he, Mr. Ma­bie?”

“I knew he would,” was the qui­et re­mark of the stock­man; and Frank un­der­stood that the oth­er had been form­ing a fa­vor­able opin­ion of the chums from the minute he saw them come off the train.

“Would you like that skin to re­mem­ber the event by, Jer­ry?” Mr. Ma­bie asked, a lit­tle lat­er, while they were watch­ing the cow­boys re­move the hide.

“It would give my moth­er a cold chill to see it, if she ev­er heard the sto­ry; but then we have a clu­broom over our boathouse, and I guess it would look nice there. So, since you are so kind as to of­fer it, I'll say yes, Mr. Ma­bie.”

“Well, I should re­mark that we'd nev­er for­give you if you let that chance slip. It looks as though our big-​game trip might pan out some­thing worth while, af­ter all,” ob­served Bluff.

“You do ev­ery­thing on a big scale out here in the North­west, sir. The fields of wheat are tremen­dous, the dis­tances im­mense, the moun­tains high­er than any in the East, by long odds; and the game the biggest in the whole coun­try,” re­marked Frank.

“And in this brac­ing air we hope to raise the finest crop of boys in the world. But let's re­turn to the house, lads. It's time we had a bite, for I'm sure your ap­petites must be sharp­ened by this lit­tle ad­ven­ture.”

The ranch­man cast many a se­cret ad­mir­ing glance to­ward Jer­ry as they rode home. He fell back with Frank on pur­pose to speak his mind, while the oth­er three gal­loped on ahead, laugh­ing and shout­ing, as boys off on a va­ca­tion al­ways do.

“I like that chap, Jer­ry,” he re­marked earnest­ly. “He's a lad af­ter my own heart. What he said about not want­ing to shoot de­fence­less game gave me a wrench, for we cher­ish no­tions along that same line up here in the wilder­ness. Of course, the griz­zly, as I said, does not come un­der that law, for he's too ter­ri­ble a cus­tomer to be giv­en much rope.”

“Some­times he takes his own rope,” laughed Frank, se­cret­ly de­light­ed to hear this hon­est praise of his chum.

“Which is quite true for you, Frank. That cow­boy will not soon get over the hu­mil­ia­tion of hav­ing his lar­iat give way. He feels very sore about it now,” re­marked the stock­man, cast­ing a side look to­ward where a cou­ple of his herders were wran­gling over some­thing as they brought up the rear.

“I'm so glad you gave Jer­ry that chance. He's the most en­thu­si­as­tic sports­man I ev­er met, and so hon­or­able in his deal­ings with the wear­ers of fin, fur and feath­er. No dan­ger of the woods ev­er be­ing de­pop­ulat­ed while he's around,” Frank said, with his cus­tom­ary gen­er­ous view of any­thing that con­cerned his chums.

“It was what you may call an in­spi­ra­tion. My first idea, of course, was to cov­er the boy and face the bear. I did not doubt my own abil­ity to down him, but some­how I was tempt­ed to take chances with the lad. I'm glad now I did it. He stood the rack­et like a vet­er­an. I'd be a hap­py man if I'd on­ly been left a boy like your chum for my own.”

The ranch­man spurred on ahead at this, and Frank made no ef­fort to over­take him, for he felt sure he had seen tears glis­ten­ing in the oth­er's eyes, and could ap­pre­ci­ate his feel­ings, for the stock­man's on­ly child, a boy, at that, lay with the moth­er in the ranch ceme­tery.

Break­fast was ready for them, and what a glo­ri­ous meal the boys made! Just as Mr. Ma­bie had said, they proved as hun­gry as wolves. That clear moun­tain air seemed to tone them up af­ter their long rail­way jour­ney, and Frank laugh­ing­ly de­clared their host had bet­ter send away for a new stock of pro­vi­sions if he ex­pect­ed to keep them sat­is­fied.

Bluff was the first to leave the ta­ble. Frank had seen him eat­ing hur­ried­ly to­ward the close of the meal. He knew with­out be­ing told what ailed his com­rade.

“He'll nev­er be hap­py un­til he gets it, fel­lows!” sang out Jer­ry, who, of course, had al­so no­ticed the hur­ried de­par­ture of the anx­ious one.

They could hear Bluff toss­ing things around hur­ried­ly in the oth­er room, where they ex­pect­ed to bunk, and to which the big trunk had been fi­nal­ly car­ried.

Ten min­utes lat­er, Frank, re­mem­ber­ing that a great si­lence had fall­en over the neigh­bor­ing apart­ment, stole soft­ly to the door and looked in. He saw a pic­ture of ab­ject de­jec­tion there--Bluff sit­ting on the floor, in the midst of piles of gar­ments, clothes bags, and all man­ner of things, frown­ing and shak­ing his head, as if he had lost his last friend.

“What's the mat­ter?” de­mand­ed Frank, draw­ing near­er.

“Mat­ter enough,” an­swered the dis­con­so­late one, sigh­ing heav­ily. “Why, af­ter all my trou­ble and ev­ery­thing, I've gone and left that knife at home, and now my whole trip is go­ing to be spoiled for me. I just seemed to feel that some­thing was bound to hap­pen to up­set my cal­cu­la­tions. I might as well go back, that's what,” said Bluff, grit­ting his teeth in his spasm of dis­gust.