Stuffing the hat into his pocket Tom scrambled on, thinking out the meaning of the incident; and now he began to notice in this steeper place that some of the boulders had been misplaced, and here and there was a broken branch, as, if someone had descended very hastily or clumsily.
“If that crazy old man came down here, and perhaps caught a second bad fall, I don't wonder he was used up by the time he reached the lake” was Tom's mental ejaculation, as he toiled up the acclivity and at last, panting and leg weary, gained a narrow grassy level at the foot of a crag “spiked with firs,” which had been conspicuous from the valley not only by its height and castellated battlements, but because a colossal X was formed on its face by two broad veins of quartz crossing each other.
With his eyes fixed upon the rocky wall he walked along in the face of a stiff breeze, until he noticed a pinkish streak upon the dark cliff, betokening the outcrop of another vein, and turned aside to climb a pile of fallen fragments at the foot of the crag to reach it. These fragments were overgrown with low, dense shrubbery. He ducked his head and was pushing into them, when suddenly he saw a huge brown body rise almost into his face, heard the tremendous growl of a grizzly, and amid a crash of bushes and dislodged stones felt himself hurled backward.
Clutching instinctively at one of the shrubs as he fell, he whirled under its hiding foliage, and the vicious stroke of the bear's paw came down upon his leg instead of his head, while the released branches snapped upward into the face of the brute, which, as much surprised as its victim, paused in its onslaught to collect its wits. An instant later Shep dashed up, and at the bear's hindquarters. Bruin spasmodically sank his claws deeper into Tom's thigh, but turned his head and shoulders with a terrific ursine oath at this new and most palpable enemy; and ten seconds afterward Tom's revolver, its muzzle pressed close underneath the bear's ear, had emptied half an ounce of lead into its brain. A blood-freezing death squeal tore the air, and the ponderous carcass sank down, stone dead, upon Tom's body and upon the dwarfed spruce which covered it. It pinned him to the ground with an almost insupportable weight. Perhaps if the animal alone had lain upon him he might have wriggled out; but the brute's carcass also held down the tough and firmly-rooted tree, and the rocks on each side formed a sort of trough. Turn and strain as he would Tom could not free himself from the burden which threatened to smother him. Moreover, the convulsive death throe had forcibly tightened the grip of the claws in the side of his knee, which felt as if in some horrible torturing machine of the Inquisition; and had he not been able at last to reach that paw with his left hand and pull it away from the wound he would have died under the agony.
Then, as he felt the blood running hot and copious down his leg, a new fear chilled his heart. Might he not bleed to death? There seemed no end to the hemorrhage, and what hope had he of succor? He thought of firing signals of distress, but could not reach the pistol, which had been knocked out of his hand. He spoke to the dog, which was barking and worrying at the bear's hind leg, and Shep came and licked his face and sniffed at his blood-soaked trousers. Then, as if even he realized how hopeless was the situation, he sat on his haunches and howled until Tom, hearing him less and less distinctly, imagined himself a boulder slowly but musically crunching to powder under the resistless advance of a glacier, and lost consciousness as the cold-blue dream-ice closed over his dust.
By and by he awoke. It was dark, and something cold and soft was blowing against his face. He moved and felt the shaggy fur and the horrible pain in his leg and in his right arm, which was confined in a twisted position. Then he remembered, but forgot again.
A second time he awoke. It was still dark, but a strange pallor permeated the air, and all around him was a mist of white.
It was snowing fast. He closed his left hand and grasped a whole fistful of flakes. The body of the bear was a mound of white—like a new-made grave over him, he dismally thought. The snow had drifted under and about his shoulders. Its chill struck the wound in his thigh, which throbbed as though hit with pointed hammers, keeping time to the pulsations of his heart; but, thank God! he no longer felt that horrible warm trickling down his leg. He had been preserved from bleeding to freeze to death. How long before that would happen; or, if it were not cold enough for that, how long before the snow would drift clear over him and cut off the little breath which that ponderous, inert, dead-cold beast on his chest prevented from entering his lungs? Where was the dog? He called feebly: “Shep! Shep! Hi-i-i, Sh-e-p!” But no moist nose or rough tongue responded. He tried to whistle, but his parched mouth refused. Heavens, how thirsty! He stretched out his hand and gathered the snow within his reach. Then he closed his eyes and dreamed that two giants were pulling him asunder, and that a third was pouring molten lead down his throat.
But it was only Bill Cooper trying to make him drink whiskey.
He understood it after a little and realized that he ought to swallow. Then life came back, and with the knowledge that he was no longer alone on the cold, remote, relentless mountain top, but that Cooper was lifting away the bear, and that Shep was wild with sympathy and gladness because he had been able to bring help, came courage and forbearance of his suffering. In the morning new strength came with the sunshine. The snow rapidly melted. Cooper got breakfast and Tom rebandaged his knee.