“No, sir,” said the Yankee, “I guess I means rusty in temper. But then it ain’t often that that occurs, for he’ll run like a deer if he gets a chance; but just wound him, then is the time to see him with his birse on end, I can tell you! But I don’t like ’em. Down in Texas a companion o’ mine, when out shooting, ran right agin one o’ these gentry; a great she one it was, with two cubs alongside of her. That was what made her so touchy, I reckon. Howsomever, she didn’t give my poor friend Obadiah Johnson much time to prepare. I never seed such a sight in my life! She was on to him, and downed him before you’d say ‘bullet.’ One great claw had gone right over his shoulder and ripped his side clean open. With the two hind claws of her she just about tore his legs into piecemeal. I fired right down her throat. Then she was on to me, and my knife was into her. But she didn’t seem to have a kill. I don’t remember very much more o’ that fight—kind o’ fainted, I reckon. Anyhow, we were all found in a heap, maybe an hour afterwards. Obadiah was dead, and so were the b’ar, and trapper Seth had only as much life in his body as saved him from being buried. ’Twere two months ere I got over that skivering, and I guess I’ll bear the marks to my grave unless I loses both arms and legs afore I goes there.”
Little thought Ralph when frankly confessing that he would rather run from than fight a grizzly, and listening to the story of old Seth’s adventure, that not two days thereafter he himself would be the subject of an attack by one of these terrible monsters. But so it turned out, and well was it for him that assistance was at hand, or one of my heroes would have dropped out of the tale.
They had enjoyed an unusually fine day’s sport, principally among the antelope, away up among the plains. I allude, of course, to the North American antelope, that saucy little fellow, so sprightly and graceful, yet so curiously impudent withal as to sometimes bring himself needlessly into trouble. With the exception of the saddle-back seal of the Greenland seas, I know of no wild animal that evinces a larger degree of inquisitiveness. Perhaps it was this very trait of antelope character that led to the size of our heroes’ bag on the day in question. They had found the animals principally in spruce and cedar thickets, and here one or two fell to their guns, while others escaped into the open, across which there was nothing in the world except their inquisitiveness to prevent their having got clear away, but they must needs stop to have a look at their hunters.
“I reckon they hav’n’t been shot at all their little lives before,” said Seth. “Now you just creep round behind while I keep their ’ttention occupied.”
One way or another, Seth had managed to “keep their ’ttention occupied,” and so venison had been the result, and plenty of it too.
It was near evening, the men had already shouldered their game and had begun the homeward march; McBain himself, with Allan and Rory, had also had enough of hunting for one day, and were preparing to follow. Ralph and Seth were invisible, so was their little companion the Skye terrier. No dog, I daresay, ever enjoyed sport more than did this little morsel of canine flesh and fury. Even before the adventure I am going to relate it had been the custom to take him out with the shooting party almost constantly, but after the adventure it was constantly, without any almost.
While they were yet wondering where Ralph and his companions were, bang went a rifle from the wooded gorge beneath them.
“They’ve got another of some kind,” said McBain.
“I expect,” said Allan, “it is a black tail, for if it were antelopes some of them would be already seeking the open, and Seth tells me the black tails prefer hiding when in danger.”