Crossing a Drift.
From Scribner's Magazine.
It was still snowing hard, but it was only a squall and nearly over. The wind was wrong; it unfortunately blew toward the bears and the only direction in which we could stalk them. Still an attempt had to be made. We took the bridles from our horses and let down our hacamores, to let them feed comfortably and out of sight, while we crawled up the ridge to where it joined the one the bears were on. We had to creep up a beastly snow-drift, which was soft and no telling how deep.
It was deep enough, for we went through sometimes to our armpits. But what mattered it when we were at concert-pitch, and bears for the tune? We were now on the same ridge as the bears. Cautiously, with the wind just a little aslant, we crawled down toward our prey, crossing another miserable snow-drift, into which we went up to our necks, where we brought up, our feet having touched bottom. We floundered out behind a small rock, and then looked up over at the bears. Too far to shoot with any certainty, and I said to Woody, "I must get closer." And so back we crawled.
Making a little detour we bobbed up again, not serenely, for the wind was blowing on the backs of our necks straight as an arrow to where the bears were. But we were a little higher up on the ridge than they and our taint must have gone over them, for when I looked up again one of them was chewing a savory morsel, and the other was on his hind legs blinking at the sun, which was just breaking through the clouds. Wiping the snow and drops of water and slush from our rifles and sights, and with a whispered advice from Woody not to be in a hurry if they came toward us, but to reserve fire in order to make sure work,—for no sheltering tree awaited us as a safe retreat, nothing but snowy ridges for miles,—I opened the ball with the young lady who was sitting down.
Two Pairs.
From Scribner's Magazine.
She dropped her bone, clapped one of her paws to her ribs, and to my happiness waltzed down the snow-bank. As she now seemed to be out of the dance, I turned to her brother, for such I afterward judged him to be, who, with great affection, had gone down with her until she stuck her head in the snow. Not understanding this, he smelled around his fallen relative, when a hollow three-hundred-and-thirty-grain chunk of lead nearly severed one hip and smashed the other. He did not stop to reason, but promptly jumped on his relative, and then and there occurred a lively bit of a scrimmage. Over and over they rolled, slapping, biting, and making the best fight of it they could, considering the plight they were in. Each probably accused the other of the mishap.
The snow was dyed a crimson hue. It was like the scene of a bloody battle-ground. At last the lady first aggrieved gave up, and plunged her head back into the snow, while her brother, not having any one to fight with, went off a short distance and lay down. We cautiously approached, bearing in mind that a snow-drift is a hard thing for pedestrians in a hurry to travel on, and when we got about ten feet from the first bear, I told my companion to snowball her and see what effect that would have, for she looked too innocent to be finished for and dead.