Alton of Somasco: A Romance of the Great Northwest

by Harold Bindloss

In place of it he went downhill, falling into bushes, floundering to the shoulders through withered fern, and now and then stumbling over rotting trees, but the splashes grew closer, and he fancied the sound before him a little nearer. It was significant that there was any sound at all, because a deer usually clears every obstacle in its almost silent flight, and the gasping man took heart again. The quarry's strength was evidently failing as its life drained away, but darkness was also close at hand, and Alton knew that he could not hold out very long. Already there was a horrible pain in his left side and his sight was growing dim.

He went on, stumbling, gasping, falling now and then, for any man not accustomed to the bush in that country would find it sufficiently difficult to walk through, until once more a grey patch of something showed up in a thicket. Again the rifle flashed, a dim shape reeled out of the bushes, and, while the man savagely smashed through those it had quitted, plunged into another thicket. Alton, who did not see it come out again, also went in headlong, tripped, and fell upon something with life in it that struggled spasmodically beneath him. There was no room to use his rifle, for he and the deer were rolling amidst the fern together, and while he felt for its throat the long knife came out. Twice it sank harmlessly amidst the snow and leaves, and then there was a gurgle, and the man rose stiffly to his feet, with dripping hands and something smoking on the sleeve of his jacket. He glanced at it without disgust, and then down at the limp shape, which now lay very still, almost compassionately.

"Well," he said simply, "it was you or me, and the wolves would have had you, anyway."

He was busy amidst the bushes for some time, and the light had gone when he stood up with the deer upon his shoulders and the rifle beneath it. It would have pleased him better to carry the latter, but the bushman brings home a deer with its fore-legs drawn over his shoulders and grasped in front of him. Alton jerked it into the most convenient position, and then stopped a moment, panting, and glanced about him. His burden was not especially heavy, but he was weary and his camp was far away, while, though a half-moon was now growing into brilliancy above the firs, it was dark below.

"I figure I'd not have to worry quite so much about my supper at Carnaby," he said, and laughed a little as he floundered stiffly up the hill.

It was at least an hour later, and he was limping on, encouraging himself with the expectation of resting in warm repletion beside the snapping fire, when he entered a denser growth of timber. Alton had like most of his kind been taught by necessity to hold the weaknesses of his body in subjection, but he was a man with the instincts of his fellows, and the thought of the steaming kettle, smell of roasting meat, glare of flickering light, and snug blankets appealed to him, and just then he would not have bartered the blackened can of smoke-tasted tea for all the plate and glass of Carnaby. His step grew a little steadier, and the sound of the river louder, until he stopped suddenly near a prostrate fir. There was a gap in the dusky vault above him through which the moon shone down and called up a sparkle from the thin scattering of snow. Beyond it the dark trunks stretched back, a stupendous colonnade, into the shadow again. There was nothing unusual in all this, but the man had seen something that made him check his breathing and set his lips. He knew he might be mistaken, but the glint he had caught for a moment suggested the barrel of a rifle.

He stood, as he realized instinctively, in the shadow with a great trunk behind him, and remained so, motionless, with his blood tingling, because the bushman knows the difficulty of catching the outline of anything that is still. Then there was a soft snapping, and the glint became visible, in another place, again, while Alton saw that he was not mistaken. He was also aware that the free prospector does not usually wait the approach of a stranger in silence with the rifle, and it flashed upon him that as the other man had moved there would in place of a shadowy trunk now be a patch of snow behind him. Alton regretted he had waited so long, and dropping the deer sprang backwards, feeling for the sling of his rifle.

He was, however, a second too late, for there was a thin red flash amidst the undergrowth, and he reeled with a stinging pain somewhere about his knee. It yielded and grew almost useless under him, and while his rifle fell with a rattle he lurched into a thicket of withered fern. For a moment he lay still, his face awry with pain, and groaned as he strove to draw his leg up beneath him. It felt numbed and powerless, and, desisting, he strove to collect his scattered wits, realizing that he had never needed them more than he did just then.

The rifle had fallen outside the thicket where the forest was more open and there was a sprinkling of snow, and Alton knew that an attempt to recover it would probably be fatal. He was equally convinced that the man who had shot him would not have come out on such an errand without his magazine full, or leave his task unfinished. There was in the meanwhile no sign of him beyond the smoke that hung about the bushes, and Alton turning over groaned again more loudly as he felt for his long-bladed knife. It was not done without a purpose, but he had little difficulty in simulating a moan of pain, and when he heard a swish of leaves, lay flat, and dragged himself very softly farther into the fern.

The wet fronds brushed his face, and here and there his fingers sank into a patch of snow, but he found its chilly touch curiously pleasant, and once clawed up a handful and thrust it into his mouth. A numbness was creeping over him, his head felt curiously heavy, but he was scheming for his life with the instinctive cunning of a wounded beast rather than reason. There was now a sound behind him, but it was dulled by the roar of the river, which he realized would drown the faint rustle he made, and, when the fern grew scantier, dragged himself across an opening and crawled in amidst the raspberry briars on the other side.