Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

"We owe much to the bear," remarked Tawannears grimly. "He had a comfortable den at the foot of this slope. We will lower Peter to it, and then you shall clean it whilst Tawannears hunts herbs to mingle with the bear's grease. If Hawenneyu's face is smiling, Corlaer will be a whole man before the Winter's snow is gone."

It was a back-breaking task to work down-hill with that inert weight, and most of the effort fell upon Tawannears. But we made it, and dragged the litter slowly into the mouth of a shallow cave under the shadow of a jutting pinnacle of rock. The bear had left visible traces of his occupation in the shape of a litter of bones and filth, and I made shift to sweep out the rock chamber with a broom of pine-boughs, and later burned over the floor and walls with torches of light-wood. A fire in a convenient corner by the entrance drove out the dampness and the lingering beast odor, and long before Tawannears was back I had carried water from a near-by brook that fed our little river.

All this time Peter had not moved a muscle. He lay like a lump of tallow, white and wan, exactly as if he were a corpse. The shaking he had received in being moved down from the ledge to this level had reopened several of his wounds, but I contrived to staunch the blood with bunches of leaves that Tawannears indicated to me as possessing styptical properties, and even washed the gore from his head and arms and torso. I met Tawannears as I was limping up from the brook with a second potful of water, and he took it from my hand and directed me to cut pine-boughs for bedding for the three of us.

Neither of us slept much that night, however, he because there was too much to be done, I in part because of the need to help him, and likewise because of the throbbing of my ankle. From the slabs of fat that I had hacked from the bear's belly Tawannears brewed a heavy grease, and when this had boiled to a paste he mixed with it quantities of leaves and roots, and bits of bark shredded fine, stirring the mess so that it might not catch fire. It had a fine, savory smell. When it was of such a consistency that the stick he used in stirring would stand upright he withdrew it from the fire, and between us we laid bare Peter's mangled body.

Tawannears' first thought was to wash those parts which I had not attended to, and after that he overspread the wounds with his salve, one by one. Next we boiled out the meager handfuls of tow I had used to pack the wounds and reëmployed them for dressings, cutting up portions of our own garments for bandages. We cast aside the remnants of Peter's shirt and breeches and reclad him in Tawannears' and mine, I offering the upper and Tawannears the nether garment, slitting them to make room for his cumbrous form. And lest he take cold in the night we covered him with aromatic pine-boughs and built up the fire to a roaring blaze.

Then, Peter being attended to, Tawannears turned his attention to my ankle, prepared a plaster of leaves immersed in boiling water and wrapped the whole in mud, bidding me sleep; and when I demanded to stand my watch, promised to awake me in due time. But the bare truth is that I collapsed from sheer weariness and suffering in that hour which precedes the dawn when life is at its lowest ebb, and I did not awaken until Tawannears touched my shoulder as the noon sun beat into the cavern entrance. He put aside my protests with a smile, and handed me a barken bowl of bear's broth.

"Drink," came Peter's voice weakly. "Dot bear makes goodt soup. Ja!"

There across the cave the big Dutchman lay with his eyes open again and a grin on his marred face.

"Is he—alive?" I asked in amazement.

Tawannears nodded, still smiling, and Peter's grin broadened.