[CHAPTER IX.]
Archie’s Adventure with a Grizzly.
ON the following morning the boys, as usual, were up with the sun, impatient to try their skill on the big game, with which the woods abounded. The trapper, who, during his fight in the cave, had received wounds that would have prostrated an ordinary man, was already stirring, and, having attended to his mules, was moving about as lively as ever, preparing the morning meal. In a few moments their breakfast was cooked and eaten, and, after hanging their provisions on the trees, out of reach of any wild beast that might find his way into camp during their absence, they shouldered their rifles and followed the trappers into the forest. Here they divided into two parties, Mr. Winters going with old Bob, and the boys accompanying Dick.
“Now, youngsters,” said the latter almost in a whisper, “we haint huntin’ squirrels. We’re arter bigger game. I don’t s’pose you keer ’bout tacklin’ a grizzly bar arter seein’ me pawed up the way I war last night; so if you happen to come acrosst one of them varmints, you needn’t mind shootin’ at him. Thar’s plenty other game, an’ what we want to find now ar’ a big-horn. That’s an animal, I reckon, you never seed. Go easy, now, ’cause they’ve got ears like a painter’s, an’ noses sharper nor hounds.”
So saying, the trapper led the way through a narrow ravine that lay between two mountains, whose tops seemed to pierce the clouds. The ravine, being thickly covered with bushes and logs, rendered their progress slow and tedious, and the boys, who could not help thinking what a fine hiding-place it would afford for a bear or panther, often cast uneasy glances about them, and kept as close to the trapper as possible. After they had gone about half a mile, the latter suddenly stopped and said:
“If these yere trees could talk, a’most every one of ’em would have a story to tell you ’bout me an’ ole Bill Lawson, ’cause we’ve often come through this gully when it war chuck full of Comanches. You ’member I onct told you ’bout waitin’ at the ole bar’s hole fur him, an’ that the ole feller had hid the black mustang in the bushes! Wal, here’s the very spot.”