Blazing Arrow: A Tale of the Frontier

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"If I were upon the other side," was his thought, as he hurried nervously along the bluff, seeking to keep pace with the rushing current, "I would have him just where I wanted him. But I shall lose him, for there is no way to get across—yes there is, and I'll do it, sure as a gun."

A hundred yards below, and quite near the falls, the bluffs approached each other so closely that he was sure he could leap from one to the other. Thus in a bound he could place himself in the best position to shoot the game against which he began to feel a resentment because of the manner in which it baffled him.

Had young Edwards been more familiar with his immediate surroundings, or less enthusiastic in his pursuit of the prize, he would have hesitated, and, adopting the good old adage, looked before he leaped; but he was carried away by the excitement of the moment, and did that which no one would have been quicker than he, under other circumstances, to condemn.

Running rapidly along the bluff, and parallel with the course of the stream, he reached the narrow portion upon which he had fixed his eye, gave it a glance, and decided that by no great effort he could leap to the corresponding bluff on the opposite side.

And beyond a doubt he would have succeeded had he used only ordinary precaution, but he was in dread lest the bear should escape him. The falls were but a short way below, and though the raging waters were likely to finish him, that of itself would spoil everything. No hunter likes to see another take his game out of his hands, and he viewed such a loss through the falls in the same light. His blood was up, and he meant to secure the animal if it was "in the wood."

Stepping hastily back for a couple of paces, he gathered himself, ran the distance, and, concentrating his strength in the effort, leaped toward the opposite bluff.

The instant he left the ledge he saw to his horror that he was going to fall. A leaper or runner always feels what is coming before the crisis is upon him, and Wharton Edwards knew he had made an awful miscalculation.

With the desperation of despair he flung his rifle from him at the instant of leaping, and when it was too late to withdraw. It landed on the rocks, and the impact of the hammer caused its discharge, the ball, by a singular concurrence of circumstances, passing within a few inches of the owner's face.

It was only for a passing breath that the youth was in the air, but it seemed to him he was held suspended for several minutes over the raging waters. He struck only a few inches short, but those few inches were fatal. His chest and lower part of the body collided violently with the solid wall, and his hands were thrown over the surface on which he had hoped and expected to place his feet.

He clutched fiercely to save himself, and had there been anything to grasp must have succeeded; but there was nothing, and, rebounding fully a foot, he went down into the torrent twenty feet below. As if fate meant to dally with and mock him, he splashed within a few feet of the bear, who, with a snuff of fear, turned away and began a wild effort to swim against the current. The brute had become aware of the roaring falls close at hand, and saw the trap in which he was caught, and from which it was impossible to extricate himself until, as may be said, he was almost on the brink of the falls.