So it came about that when pursuit had been left far behind, we were in the Barren Places, as The Keeper named them. And they deserved the name, being of swamp and scrub trees and thickets of saplings; but of game there was plenty. In this place came the danger to Ruth, and here we first encountered the Mighty One, of whom I will have great things to tell in their own place.
One morning Ruth and I had left the camp for an early ramble. I took a fusil, thinking to kill a deer or caribou. We climbed a little hill above the camp and entered the thicker woods, where after a while we became separated, Ruth halting beside some bushes of berries, very good to the taste. I was perhaps a hundred yards from her when I heard a sudden cry.
Whirling about, I saw a wondrous beast plunging toward the lass. Of monstrous build he was, with huge shoulders and head, while great splay-horns added to his frightful mien. In terror, Ruth made shift to get behind a tree, while the monster stood shaking his head and striking the earth with his hoofs.
I had been so startled that for a moment I forgot my fusil. Never had I dreamed of so huge a beast! I shouted at him and ran forward, whereat he came at me speedily. Ruth cried out again, and in mighty fear I raised my weapon, thinking to see fire come from his nostrils at any moment, for I took him as little less than the fiend himself.
But now he had turned again to Ruth, and the little maid was barely keeping the tree between them. In desperation, I poured fresh powder in the pan and aimed again. This time the weapon spoke, and the added powder sent me backward to the ground with the recoil. Those mighty horns seemed to shoot forward and up, the huge body rose in air, and the next I knew was that the terrible beast was standing over me, scraping at me with his horns. Fortunately, they seemed soft, like those of a deer in summer, and I beat frantically at his enormous nose. An instant later I gripped the horns.
With this, the monster lifted his head and me with it. I gave myself up for lost as he pressed me back into a tree, snorting and grunting, but I hung on grimly enough, for I feared the sharp hoofs.
"Run!" I cried to Ruth, whom I could not see. "Run, Ruth!"
I felt my strength going fast. Now the beast had pushed me in through the branches and was striving to grind me against the tree-trunk itself. Vainly did I writhe and twist away, for those huge horns swung and slashed at me, and had they been hard I had died in that moment. As it was, I felt my ribs crushed in, then a terrific pain shot through me, and my grip loosened.
But even as I fell back, a wild yell sounded in my ears, and a blast of powder-smoke swept by my face. The massy horns were gone, and I scraped back against the tree and came to the ground, helpless and broken.