He had been but a little while gone from the rocky open, where the red carcase lay hideously affronting the sunlight, when another bear emerged in leisurely fashion from the shadows. It was an animal of huge size and with rusty fur that was greying about the snout. She paused to look around her. On the instant her body stiffened, and then she went crashing through the blueberry bushes to where that dreadful thing lay bleeding. She walked around it twice, with her nose in the air, and again with her nose to the ground. Then she backed away from it slowly down the slope, her stare fixed upon it as if she expected it might rise and follow. At the edge of the wood she wheeled quickly, and went at a savage gallop along the trail which Dave had taken.
It was old Kroof; and Dave had killed her cub.
She rushed on madly, a terrible avenger of blood; but so fast was Dave journeying that it was not much short of an hour before her instinct or some keen sense told her that he was close at hand. She was not blinded by her fury. Rather was she coolly and deliberately set upon a sufficing vengeance. She moderated her pace, and went softly; and soon she caught sight of her quarry some way ahead, striding swiftly down the brown-shadowed vistas.
There was no other bear in all the forests so shrewd as Kroof; and she knew that for the hunter armed all her tremendous strength and fury were no match. She waited to catch him at a disadvantage. Her huge bulk kept the trail as noiselessly as a weasel or a mink. Young Dave, with all his woodcraft, all his alertness of sense, all his intuition, had no guess of the dark Nemesis which was so inexorably dogging his stride. He was in such haste that in spite of the autumn chill his hair clung moistly to his forehead. When he reached the rivulet flowing away from the cabin spring, he felt that he must have a wash-up before presenting himself. Under a big hemlock he dropped his bundle, threw off his cap, his belt, his shirt, and laid down his loaded rifle. Then, bare to the waist, he went on some twenty paces to a spot where the stream made a convenient pool, and knelt down to give himself a thorough freshening.
Kroof’s little eyes gleamed redly. Here was her opportunity.
She crept forward, keeping the trunk of the hemlock between herself and her foe, till she reached the things which Dave had thrown down under the tree. She sniffed at the rolled-up package and turned it over with her paw. Then, with one short, grunting cough of rage and pain, she launched herself upon the murderer of her cub.
That savage cry was Dave’s first hint of danger. He looked up quickly, his head and shoulders dripping. He recognized Kroof. There was no time for choice. The huge animal was just upon him; but in that instant he understood the whole tragedy. His heart sickened. There was a great beech tree just across the pool, almost within arm’s length. With one bound he reached it. With the next he caught a branch and swung himself up, just eluding the vengeful sweep of Kroof’s paw.
Nimbly he mounted, seeking a branch which would lead him to another tree and so back to the ground and his rifle; and Kroof, after a moment’s pause, climbed after him. But Dave could not find what he sought. Few were the trees in the ancient wood whose topmost branches did not twine closely with their neighbour trees. But with a man’s natural aversion to bathing in water that is not enlivened and inspirited by the direct sunlight, Dave had chosen a spot where the trees were scattered and the blue of the sky looked in. He climbed to a height of some forty or fifty feet from the ground before he found a branch that seemed to offer any hope at all. Out upon this he stepped, steadying himself by a slenderer branch above his head. Following it as far as the branch would support him, he saw that his position was all but hopeless. He could not, even by the most accurate and fortunate swing, catch the nearest branch of the nearest tree. He turned back, but Kroof was already at the fork. Her claws were already fixed upon the branch; she was crawling out to him slowly, inexorably; she had him in a trap.
Dave stood tense and moveless, awaiting her. His face was white, his mouth set. He knew that in all human probability his hour was come; yet what might be done, he would do. Far below, between him and the mingling of rock and moss which formed the ground (he looked down upon it, chequered with the late sunlight), was a stout hemlock branch. At the last moment he would drop; and the branch—he would clutch at it—might perhaps break his fall, at least in part. It was a meagre chance, but his only one. He was not shaken by fear, but he felt aggrieved and disappointed at such a termination of his hopes; and the deadly irony of his fate stung him. The branch bent lower and lower as Kroof’s vast weight drew near. The branch above, too frail to endure his weight alone, still served to steady him. He kept his head erect, challenging death.
It chanced that Miranda, not far off, had heard the roar with which Kroof had rushed to the attack. The fury of it had brought her in haste to the spot, surprised and apprehensive. She recognized Dave’s rifle and hunting-shirt under the hemlock tree, and her heart melted in a horrible fear. Then she saw Dave high up in the beech tree, his bare shoulders gleaming through the russet leaves. She saw Kroof, now not three feet from her prey. She saw the hate in the beast’s eyes and open jaws.