The wolves were but the forerunners. Mountain lions of uncommon size and ferocity appeared. An old woman was struck down in the night and devoured, and in broad daylight a child standing at the brink of the river was killed and carried away. Then the grizzly bears or other bears, huge beyond any that they had ever seen before, appeared. A group came in the night and attacked the pony herd, slaying and partly devouring at least a dozen. All in the village were awakened by the stamping of the horses and in the bitter cold and darkness the brave children of the wild rushed to the rescue, the women snatching torches and hurrying with them to furnish light by which their men could fight.
The battle that ensued was fully as terrible as that with the wolves. The bears, although far fewer than the wolves had been, were the greatest of all the American carnivora, and they resented savagely the attempt to drive them from their food, turning with foaming mouths upon their assailants, who could not meet them now with bullets, but who fought with the weapons of an earlier time.
Will plied the bow and arrow, and, when the arrows were exhausted, used a long lance. He and Xingudan were really the leaders, marshalling their hosts with such skill and effect that they gradually drove the bears away from the ponies, leaving the animals to be quieted by the women and old men, while the warriors fought the bears. Among these men was Roka, now recovered from his wound, and using a great bow with deadly accuracy. He and Will at length drew up side by side, and the stout Indian planted an arrow deep in the side of a bear. Yet the wound was not fatal, and the animal, first biting at the arrow, then charged. Will struck with the lance so fiercely that it entered the animal's heart and, wrenched from his hands, was broken as the great beast fell.
"Behold!" shouted Xingudan in Roka's ear, "he has saved your life even as he saved mine!"
Not one of the bears escaped, but two of the men lost their lives in the terrible combat, and the strength of the village was reduced yet further. The two men, however, had perished nobly and the people felt triumphant. Will examined the bears by the numerous torchlights. He and Xingudan and Inmutanka agreed that they were not the true grizzly of the Montana or Idaho mountains, but, like the first one, much larger beasts coming out of the far north. Will judged that the largest of them all weighed a full three-quarters of a ton or more, and a most terrific creature he was, with great hooked claws as hard as steel and nearly a foot in length.
"One blow of those would destroy the stoutest warrior, Waditaka," said Xingudan.
"Our bows and arrows and lances have saved us," said Will. "I think they've been driven out of the Arctic by the great cold, and have migrated south in search of food."
"Then they smelled the horses and attacked them."
"Truly so, Xingudan, and they or other wild beasts will come again. The ponies are our weakest point. The great meat-eating animals will always attack them."
"But we must keep our ponies, Waditaka. We will need them in the spring to hunt the buffalo."