He paused in front of the little shelter he had constructed for the girls. They slept. Loseis was lying with her head pillowed on Mary-Lou’s shoulder like a child. In her weakness she looked entirely the child, the sick child. At the sight of those transparent cheeks and bluish eyelids, Conacher’s breast was wrung with agony. The worst of overcoming the physical weakness was, that one then began to think again, with horrible clearness. How could he ask this exhausted child to go on any further? She was dearer to him than his life. Would it not be kinder to end her sufferings while she slept? She opened her eyes, and smiled at him enchantingly. That smile capped his agony. Swallowing the groan that was forced up by his breast, he smiled back, and staggered on.
Like all the prairie sloughs, this one lay in a dish-like depression surrounded by a shallow rim of grass. Conacher had made half his round of the bluff, when over this rim at a distance of about a hundred yards appeared a lumbering black body of an astonishing bigness. For an instant he thought his senses were failing him; he began to tremble violently; but he quickly realized that it was a veritable bear. A bear’s eye-sight is not very keen, and the animal had not seen him. He drew back amongst the little trees, struggling to control his excitement. You can not miss him! he kept telling himself.
The bear was evidently making for the bluff to breakfast off poplar bark. Conacher realized with a pang that he was directly in the wind of the animal. The bear was in no hurry. He turned aside to snuff and scratch at the roots of a clump of roses. He was the largest black bear that Conacher had ever seen. The big head was dwarfed by his mighty rump. His black pelt was grayed with moisture. The man’s mouth watered ridiculously. The bear turned towards him, and his heart began to thump. Then the animal changed his mind, and sauntered around the rim of the bench. Conacher, stepping with infinite care, kept pace with him amongst the little trees.
The bear disappeared over the edge of the rim, and Conacher’s heart almost broke. Should I go after him? he asked himself. No! he is bound to come to the bluff and the slough. The animal reappeared and hope flared up anew. He was heading towards the bluff again. He was no longer directly in Conacher’s wind, consequently the chance of getting him was better. But the deliberation of the beast well-nigh maddened the man. Bruin stood gazing off to the east as if he were debating the choice between this and some other feeding ground. He sat up on his haunches, and licked his paws. Finally he came lumbering towards the trees in a businesslike manner. Conacher raised his gun.
Before the bear had made half the distance that separated them, though Conacher had not moved, the animal’s mysterious instinct warned him of the presence of danger. He stopped with a woof! of alarm, and turning in his tracks, galloped back for the shelter of the rim. Conacher fired. The bear’s broad beam offered him a goodly mark, and he knew by the tremor that went through the animal that he had hit him: but it was not in a vulnerable spot. He galloped on without a pause. He disappeared over the encircling rim of grass. A voice seemed to cry inside Conacher: “You have lost your last chance!”
He found strength to run as if he had not been starved for four days. As he topped the rise, he saw the bear lying in the grass a hundred feet away; and a great, calm thankfulness filled his breast. It was all right! The animal was not dead, but disabled in his hind quarters. He lay with his head between his paws awaiting the end. Conacher dispatched him with a bullet through the brain.
Crying out: “A bear! I’ve got him!” Conacher dropped to his knees, and started instanter to skin his prey. Presently Mary-Lou who was more skillful at this job than he, relieved him. Loseis stood looking on like a happy little ghost. They could not wait to skin the bear entire; but cut off a piece of meat, and ran back to the fire with it.
Conacher kept saying over and over like an old woman: “Mind! Mind! Only a little piece at first, or it will make you sick!”
“If there is meat, why not eat?” grumbled Mary-Lou.
Nevertheless she obeyed; and at first only three tiny pieces were set upon pointed sticks to roast over the fire. It may be guessed that they were not very well cooked before they were eaten. Conacher and Loseis nibbled them to make them go as far as possible. Mary-Lou saw no sense at all in this proceeding, but loyally followed their example.