CHAPTER XXXIV—A BATTLE ROYAL.
Sandy cooked and ate one of his grouse and resumed his watching. The cooking, thanks to his training in the ways of woodcraft, was an easy matter for him. He had a small, telescopic cleaning rod with him for his rifle. Having plucked and split the grouse, he impaled it on this and cooked it over the embers.
He would have liked bread and salt, but was in no mood to grumble over his meal. He was only too thankful to have secured it at all. He noted with delight that the wolves were beginning to get uneasy. The hunger that was gnawing at them was beginning to work upon their patience. As soon as they saw Sandy they set up a chorus of howls and yapping barks and once more tried to scale the rocks. One almost succeeded in doing this, but Sandy shot it before it had gained a foothold. It shared the fate of the dead leader, the ravenous pack leaving absolutely nothing of its remains.
It was well on in the day when the pack began to raise their nostrils and sniff the wind. Plainly something was in the air that Sandy knew nothing about. The wolves, however, appeared greatly excited. They got on their feet and began to mill about, barking and yapping in bewildering discord.
“I wonder what is the matter with them,” thought Sandy, as he watched, and then it began to dawn upon him that something that either alarmed or excited the wolves must be approaching the rocks.
“Perhaps it is a man,” thought Sandy, with a thrill of pleasurable anticipation. The next minute he almost began to hope that no human being was near unless there were several of them in a large party, for a lone hunter or trapper would be able to make only a feeble stand against the pack.
At length, far out on the snow fields, he made out a dark form lumbering along toward the rocks. For some time he could not think what it was, but at last he made out the nature of the creature.
It was a bear, and a big one, too. It was probably one of those surly old fellows that refuse to hibernate like most of their kind and stay out the winter through, hunting what they can and maintaining a scanty living till spring comes again.
A sensation by no means pleasurable possessed Sandy at the idea of such company on the rocks. The wolves were bad enough; but a bear! However, he reflected, his rifle was of good heavy caliber and he had plenty of ammunition left to dispatch the bear if it should prove troublesome. Moreover, as Sandy knew, bear meat is good meat when one is hungry; and although the bear now approaching the rocks was undoubtedly poor and thin, its carcass would have at least some meat upon it.
But now his attention was distracted from the bear by the actions of the pack. They set up their hunting cry, which differs from their ordinary yapping accents very widely. In fact, wolves appear to have a rudimentary language of their own.
The constant milling round and round and up and out ceased. A sudden hush settled down over the pack and then, like one wolf, they were off. Sandy saw, with a thrill, what was coming. Their game was the bear! A battle royal hung upon the issue.
With an interest which swallowed up all other considerations, Sandy watched as the pack swept down on the bear. The big, clumsy creature had already seen them coming and had quickened his pace to a lumbering gallop, which yet brought him over the snow at a good speed. He was heading directly for the rocks, where he could make a stand. His instinct must have told him that out in the open he would have but a poor chance against his savage opponents.
Sandy felt a flash of sympathy for the great bear as the pack made a detour and were on his heels. He saw one chisel-clawed foot shoot out and a big wolf leap high and fall down, rent from shoulder to thigh. The killing gave the bear a breathing space, for the pack fell on their comrade with hideous yelps. Their cannibal feast gave the bear time to increase the distance between himself and his swarming foes.
He reached the rocks with the pack close on his heels, and then seeing that he could not scale the rocks, the huge creature upreared himself against the boulders and prepared to battle for his life.
With a yelp the leader of the pack flung himself at the great hairy animal’s throat. With one glancing sweep of his huge paw the bear disposed of him. One after another the wolves attacked their foe, only to be felled, wounded and bleeding, and to become victims to their own hunting mates.
“Good boy!” Sandy found himself saying. “Hit ’em again!”
His sympathies were all with the bear, making the fight of his life.
The wolves fell back. But the bear was not deceived. He maintained his stand against the rocks. The wolves crouched, glaring hatred and defiance at him. The ground about the battlefield was red now. Ten wolves had given up their lives. But the bear, too, showed marks of the combat. More than one pair of gleaming white fangs had met in his skin.
Sandy watched with the interest of someone who has a personal stake in a battle royal.
The wolves did not long remain quiescent This time they tried new tactics. They attacked en masse. Like a swarm of bees they flung themselves on the great monarch of the northern forests. His steel-shod paws swept right and left. Yelping and howling the wolves fell before him. But as fast as some fell, others took their places.
The bear was bleeding now. Wounded in a score of places, he fought on against his overwhelming foes with royal courage. To the boy watching from the rocks above, there was something almost sublime in the fight for life that the great creature was making against such overwhelming odds. But plainly the contest could not last much longer.
Like great waves of gray the wolves were hurling themselves forward. They fought blindly and desperately and the bear’s blows were growing weaker.
“I’ll help you, old fellow!” breathed Sandy. “I’ll take a hand in this myself. I’ve no more reason to love your enemies than you have.”
He reached out to the rocks and secured his rifle. When he turned back he was just in time to see a gray form at the bear’s throat. The wolf hung on while the big animal beat the air helplessly with his paws.
Bang!
Sandy’s rifle cracked and the wolf dropped to the ground. But the others hardly seemed to notice the intervention of the bear’s ally. So numerous were they, that their ranks appeared to be hardly thinned by their losses.
Again and again, unbaffled by the tremendous courage and the sweeping blows of their adversary, they returned to the attack. Again and again, too, did Sandy’s rifle crack, and each time a wolf drew his last breath. The battle was beginning to tell on the wolves as well as on the bear. Their leaders were gone. The pack began to fight in desultory fashion.
The bear’s blows were feebler, but since that desperate assault on his throat, the wolves had not had the courage to close with him. Sandy’s rifle completed their rout. At last they appeared to realize that they were pitted against the terrible fire tube of the white man as well as the steel-shod paws of the bear. They wavered, broke ranks and then, as if by a concerted resolution, they turned tail.
Straight for the forest they sped, while the bear, flinging his big bulk down on the snow began licking his wounds. Sandy looked down upon him. The big creature was an easy shot, pitifully easy, and his skin would make a fine trophy. Sandy raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed it. He put it down and raised it again. But again his resolution failed him. “No, old fellow,” he exclaimed aloud, “you helped me fight those gray demons and for all of me, you shall go where you like unharmed.”
It was late afternoon before the wounded bear rose slowly to his feet, and without a backward glance shuffled off toward the south. Sandy watched him going across the snows for a long time. He was glad he had not shot him.
He turned from the trail of the wounded bear toward the north once more, and as he did so a shout burst from his lips.
Coming toward him over the snow were the figures of two men. With them was a dog sleigh, and they were traveling fast on a course that would bring them past the rocks.
Ten minutes later Sandy recognized in the travelers his uncle and the latter’s partner, Mr. Colton Chillingworth.