The Secret Trails

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

He escaped it for the instant; but in the effort he fell headlong, and jammed himself in a crevice of the rock so awkwardly that he could not at once extricate himself. He drew up his legs with an involuntary shudder, and held his breath, expecting to feel the merciless claws rake the flesh from his thighs.

But nothing touched him; and the next moment there broke out an astounding uproar behind him, a very pandemonium of roars and windy gruntings, while the crashing of the bushes was as if the forest were being subdued beneath a steam-roller. Consumed with amazement, he wrenched himself from the crevice and glanced round. The sight that met his eyes made him clamber hastily to the top of the rock, whence he might look down from a more or less safe distance upon a duel of giants such as he had never dared hope to witness.

When the bear found that it was no cow-moose, but a man that he was springing upon, he was so taken aback that, for a second or two, he forbore to follow up his advantage. To those two seconds of hesitation Joe Peddler owed his escape.

Before the massive brute, now boiling with rage at having been so deceived, had sufficiently made up his mind to fall upon that prostrate figure in the crevice, something that seemed to him like a tornado of hooves and antlers burst out of the bushes and fell upon him. The next moment, with a long, red gash half-way down his flank, he was fighting for his life.

The gigantic moose had been just upon the verge of rushing in to silence those incomprehensible and deceiving calls, when the towering form of the bear burst upon his vision. Here at last was something to focus his wrath. Already angry, but still dampened by bewilderment, his anger now exploded into a very madness of rage. There was the ancient, inherited feud between his tribe and all bears. As a youngster, he had more than once escaped, as by a miracle, from the neck-breaking paw of a bear, had more than once seen a young cow struck down and ripped to pieces. Now to this deep-seated hate was added another incentive. His mind confused by fury to protect his mate, he dimly felt that the mystery which had been tormenting him was the fault of this particular bear. The man was forgotten. A cow had been calling to him. She had disappeared. Here was the bear. The bear had probably done away with the cow. The cow should be terribly avenged.

The bear—which was one of the biggest and fiercest of his kind in all the northern counties—had fought moose, both bulls and cows, before. But he had never before faced such an antagonist as this one, and that first slashing blow from the bull's knife-edged fore-hoof had somewhat flurried him. Sitting back poised, with his immense hindquarters gathered under him, and his fore-paws uplifted, he parried the smashing strokes of his assailant with the lightning dexterity of a trained boxer. His strength of shoulder and forearm was so enormous that if he could have got a stroke in flat, at right angles to the bone, he would have shattered the bull's leg to splinters. But his parrying blows struck glancingly, and did no more than rip the hair and hide.

After a few minutes of whirlwind effort to batter down that impregnable guard, the bull jumped back as nimbly, for all his bulk, as a young doe startled from her drinking. His usual method of attack, except when fighting a rival bull, was to depend upon his battering fore-hooves. But now he changed his tactics. Lowering his head so that his vast right antler stood out before him like a charge of bayonets, he launched himself full upon his adversary.

With all his weight and strength behind it, that charge was practically irresistible, if fairly faced. But the bear was too wise to face it fairly. He swung aside, clutched the lowered antler, and held fast, striving to pull his enemy down.

But the bull's strength and impetus were too great, and the bear was himself thrown off his balance. Even then, however, he might probably have recovered himself and once more established the battle upon even terms. But he had not reckoned—he could not have been expected to reckon—upon the unprecedented weapon of that little down-drooping left antler. Not for nothing was the giant bull lop-horned. The dwarfed and distorted antler hung down like a plough-share. And the bear attempted no defence against it. Keen-spiked, it caught him in the belly and ploughed upward. In a paroxysm he fell backwards. The bull, swinging his hindquarters around without yielding his advantage for a second, lunged forward with all his force, and the deadly little plough was driven home to the bear's heart.

Peddler, from his post on top of the rock, shouted and applauded in wild excitement, and showered encomiums, no less profane than heartfelt, upon the victorious bull. For a minute or two the bull paid no attention, being engrossed in goring and trampling his victim in an effort to make it look less like a bear than an ensanguined floor-rug. At last, as if quite satisfied with his triumph, he lifted his gory head and eyed that voluble figure on top of the rock. It looked harmless.