When half-way round the ridge, we caught faint echoes from the hounds below. The sound was as stirring in tone as the reveille of the camp. A minute after, our party was broken into sections, every one being left to pick his way as best he could to the scene of the fight between the dogs and bear. Naturally, the three young fellows in store clothes stayed together. A balsam slope is the roughest ever trodden by the foot of man. The rhododendrons and kalmias are perfect net-works. In them a man is in as much danger of becoming irrecoverably entangled unto death as a fly in a spider’s web; but, in the excitement caused by that faint chiming of the hounds, no one seemed to think of the danger of being lost in the labyrinths.
Luckily, before we three had proceeded 100 yards down a steep declivity, we struck the channel of a tiny brook. Hedges of rhododendron grow rankly along it, on both sides, and almost meet over the clear, rushing water. It would be impossible for a man to penetrate these hedges for any great distance, unless time was of no object whatever. The path of the torrent affords the path for the hunter. We had on rubber boots, and so waded in, following it down a devious course. It was an arduous walk. At times slippery rocks sent us floundering; boulders intercepted us, and the surface of deep pools rose higher than our boot-tops. For two miles we pushed on, our ardor being kept aflame by the increasing noise of the pack, and a few minutes later, we reached the scene of the struggle.
The fight between two dogs on a village street affords great interest to the mixed crowd that gathers around it; cocks pitted against each other collect the rabble, and the bull fight of Spain furnishes a national amusement; but of all fights that between a pack of ravenous dogs and a frenzied bear is the most exciting. But few persons are ever accorded a sight of this nature. It can never be forgotten by them. This is what we saw on issuing from the laurel: A white wintry expanse, free from undergrowth, on which the trees were set a little further apart than usual; back of us the stream; while across the open expanse, at the distance of twenty yards, a leaning cliff with the wild vines on its front sprinkled with snow, and its top hidden from view by the giant hemlocks before it. Close at the base of one of these hemlocks, reared on his haunches, sat a shaggy black bear. He was licking his chops; and, holding his fore paws up in approved pugilistic style, was coolly eyeing ten hounds, which, forming a semi-circle, distant about ten feet before him, were baying and barking with uplifted heads and savage teeth exposed. One poor hound, with skull cracked by Bruin’s paw, lay within the circle. At the foot of a hemlock near us sat two bleeding curs, and one with a broken leg began dragging himself toward us.
By exposing ourselves we lost our chances for a shot; for, as soon as we came in view, the hounds, encouraged by the sight
THE FINAL STRUGGLE.
of men, sprang at their antagonist with redoubled fury and increased yelping. It would have been impossible for us to have made a shot with our shotguns without having killed or disabled several of the hounds; so with triggers cocked we bided our time and with interest watched the combat. Judging by his methods of defense, Bruin was an adept in that line. He had had time for experience, for he was a great, shaggy fellow with gray tufts of hair on his head. He showed his teeth and growled as the dogs kept jumping at him. A twelve hour fight, in which several of the pack had been rendered incapable of attack, had given caution to the remainder, and they were extremely wary about taking their nips at him.
During the melee that for the next minute ensued, one savage hound was caught in the clutches of the bear and hugged and bitten to death; while, taking advantage of the momentary exposure of his sides, the others of the pack fell upon old Bruin until he was completely hidden under the struggling mass. He had just shaken them off again and recovered his balance, when a rifle shot sounded, and a puff of white smoke arose from under a spruce at the edge of the laurel thicket. The noise of the fight had prevented us hearing the approach of Wid, the old hunter. I looked from him at the group. Bruin had fallen forward on his face. Every dog was on his body, now writhing in its death throes.
“Too bad ye didn’t git a chance to kiver him,” said the old man, “but hit wouldn’t done to kill the dogs no way.”