The guide carefully hid his horse in a thicket on the river’s bank, some three miles from the Indian settlement, and then carefully approached it on foot.
The country was rough and uneven, and, as the “Crow-Killer” had said, excellent for scouting. The village lay in a little hollow, near the Missouri, surrounded on all sides, except the one washed by the river, by hills heavily timbered.
The scout had got within a mile or so of the village—he could tell its position by the smoke—and was proceeding cautiously along through a little glade between two rocky hills, when he was suddenly startled by a noise in the shrubbery right before him. Hardly had he stopped, and before he could turn to retreat, forth from the thicket came a huge grizzly bear, who made directly for the hunter. Abe did not dare to use his rifle, for the report would bring the Indians upon him—flight was his only hope, for a man stands but little chance for his life in a close encounter with the brown monarch of the Rocky Mountains.
Luckily a tree was near at hand, a good-sized oak. Dropping his rifle, the “Crow-Killer” sprung for the tree, and soon ensconced himself in its lower branches.
The grizzly came to the foot of the tree and looked upward; then, to Abe’s dismay, forth from the thicket marched dismay, forth from the thicket marched another grizzly, if any thing larger than the first.
“Wal, I’m in for it!” thought Abe. “I’d rather fight the Injuns than these durned brutes. If I ain’t in a pesky difficulty then my name’s not Abe.”
The second grizzly joined the first at the bottom of the tree, and then both beasts looked up at the hunter and licked their jaws as if they expected he would soon fall into them.
Luckily for the man, as it proved, the oak was a small tree, and but one of the bears could ascend it at a time, for the grizzly is a tree-climber as well as his brother, the black bear.
Abe watched the grizzlys closely; he knew their habits well; these were evidently hungry, and would soon ascend the tree for their prey.
How repulse the attack of the brutes? All of the bear kind have very tender noses; the grizzly ascending the tree could not very well begin an attack until he reached the limbs. So the hunter drew his sharp knife, cut a heavy club from a convenient branch, and trimming it of its limbs, awaited the bear’s approach.