The grey sky was darkening, distant objects were already blending into compact masses. Luckily, though not a proven trail finder, Kidd had woodcraft in plenty, and soon hit on the proper homeward direction. On spying an indubitable mark, he uttered a sigh of gratification, and hurried to make up for lost time. He judged that within the hour he would be in camp, when he came upon some fresh and bold prints in the snow crust, hardening as the night brought coolness. No one could doubt that they were made by a grizzly bear, not the black or the brown, but the genuine "Uncle Ephraim" himself. This set the fugitive a-thinking. A braver man than he does not foresee a meeting with Old Eph. without pardonable misgiving.
The grizzly or the grisly—according to whether you name him after his coat or the horror he inspires, is, far more than the lion, the king of beasts, for he is perfect in courage, in strength, steadiness under gunfire, and a noble good humour towards his folk. He is, perhaps, the only animal that dances in sheer love of amusement, and his gambols at a "bears' party" are the drollest sight a hunter ever knows. It is true few have looked on and lived to tell. The Rocky Mountains are the home of the veritable grizzly, and the frequency of his apparition among the mines of the Sierra Nevada won the title of the Grizzly Bear State for California.
Captain Kidd recovered from the recent shock that had unhinged him before a danger that required coolness to temper bravery. He shook his head like a Newfoundland coming out of the water, and growled.
"This lumbering fool has smelt the camp, and has put himself exactly in my way back. I wish he had given those Canadians a visit where there are plenty of dead bodies."
He carefully examined his rifle, slipped in a second bullet in a greased wad, and resumed his march, but with extreme caution. The difficulty was not to stumble on his foe, who, with razor sharp claws six or seven inches long, would make a man look as if he had gone through a "system of saws" in a mill.
He had proceeded some five hundred yards, so as to nearly get out of the tangle wood of deciduous trees, distorted and stunted by the cold winds, when a prolonged cavernous grumbling, arising not far from him, sent an icy shiver all through him. He stopped short, bent forward, and took a wary look. Before attaining a clearing, there was a narrow canyon to cross, profoundly cleft between two perpendicular sides, two yards deep and twenty paces long. About a third of the way up this channel, leisurely sprawling on the snow, in which he was partly embedded on account of his great weight, a grizzly was licking his fore paws and smoothing pine burrs out of his harsh coat. Suddenly, the animal winked its little savage eyes, pricked its snub ears up, and, without glancing round or caring to listen, set to sniffing. Its subtle scenting faculty had been aroused by some unwonted and consequently disquieting emanation. Nevertheless, a fact delighting the captain, it was not he to whom the bear was paying any heed.
"Good luck to the stir in the air that saves me!" he thought. "The creature never imagines that a man is treading on his tail. 'Tis a splendid fur coat; but I am not hunting grizzly just at present, thank you! I don't care for any on my toast!"
Hence, he was taking a backward step and looking about him to try to manage a circuit to avoid the encounter, when he heard what seemed an echo, only a little more so, of the bear's growl. It came from behind him, and was so angrily intoned that he was most surprised to see a second grizzly, no doubt the mate of the first, slouching along towards him, its head lowered in his track.
To be the shuttlecock between two ursine battledores is one of those experiences of which few victims narrate the incidents.
The second antagonist was certain to arrive at him by its unerring scent, and, moreover, was the nearer as well as the larger beast. To shoot and run for his life was all the course which his fright counselled, so he lifted his gun, levelled it steadily at the grizzly's eye, partly veiled by its shaggy fore hair, and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, whether the piece had been tampered with, or the snow had eaten away the barrel, the charge hung fire, and the peculiar and frightfully loud detonation betokened that the barrel had burst. Without being wounded, the captain pitched forward head foremost into the snow, from not meeting the recoil which he had nerved himself to resist.