He showed her gray, crinkling hairs that had caught in the bark, explaining that mysterious wilderness custom of the grizzly of measuring his length on the tree trunks and leaving a mark, as high as he can bite, for all to see. According to many naturalists any bear that cannot bite an equal height immediately seeks a new range, leaving the district to the larger bear. But Bill confessed that he took the legend with a grain of salt. "I've seen too many bear families running around the woods together," he explained. "Pa bears, ma bears, and baby bears, all different sizes."
Virginia noticed that he spoke with great respect for that huge forest king, the grizzly; but she needn't have wondered. The great creature was worthy of it.
Perhaps the most intelligent wild animal that roams the American continent—on the same intellectual plane with the dog and elephant—he was also the most terrible. The truth has been almost established among the big-game hunters that wild animals, with few exceptions, even when wounded practically never charge or attack the hunter. But his imperial majesty, the grizzly, was first on the list of exceptions. He couldn't be entirely trusted. His terrible strength, his ferocity, most of all his courage won him a wide berth through this mountain land.
She began to catch glimpses of bird life,—saucy jays and glorious-colored magpies and grossbeaks. She cried out in delight when a pine squirrel scampered up a little tree just over her head, pausing to look down at these strange forms that had disturbed the cathedral silence of the tree aisles. And all at once Bill drew up his horses.
"Miss Tremont, do you like chicken?" he asked.
She was somewhat startled by the abrupt question, and her horse nosed Mulvaney's flanks before she drew him to a halt. It occurred to her that such a query scarcely came under the title of small talk, and she found some difficulty in shaping her answer. "Why yes," she agreed. "I'm very fond of chicken."
"It's pretty good, boiled with rice," the man went on gravely. "We'll have some for supper."
Virginia stared at him in blank amazement as he slipped down from the saddle and drew his automatic, small-calibered pistol from the holster. He stole forward into the flaking shadows of late afternoon, and at once the brush obscured him. Then he shot,—four times in succession.
She was wholly unable to guess what manner of target he had. Chickens were one thing that she found it hard to believe ranged in these northern woods. She felt certain that he had missed the first three shots, but she waited with considerable interest the result of the fourth. And soon he pushed through the thickets to her side.
In his hand he held a queer, gray, shapeless bundle that at first she could not recognize. Then she saw that they were gray grouse, almost the color of a Plymouth Rock hen, and there was not one, but four! He started to stuff them into his saddlebag. "Pretty lucky that time," he explained. "Got 'em through the neck. That leaves the meat clean——"