Afar in the Forest

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Whether or not the last thrust was necessary I do not know, but the bear ceased struggling; and Mike, springing on the body, exclaimed—

“He’s dead enough now, anyhow! And we’ll take the liberty of cutting him up, and getting our teeth into his flesh; for, sure, he has spoilt our rest for the night.”

The centre of the hut was by this time a pool of blood; we therefore dragged out the bear, and while Mike began scientifically to flay the carcass, I collected sticks for a fire. We soon had a good one blazing up, and some of the slices of the bear toasting before it. We were too hungry to wait until the morning.

“Sure, the bear was sent to us to be aten,” observed Mike; “and suppose we get nothing else till we reach home, it will serve to keep us alive till then.”

Having satisfied the cravings of hunger, we cooked some more slices of the best portions of the meat, to serve for our breakfast before starting; and the remainder we cut into thin strips to smoke over the fire, and afterwards to dry in the sun. As both we and our steeds were tired, we agreed not to start till a later hour than usual. There was a risk in remaining, but still it was better to run it, rather than knock up our horses or ourselves.

Mike faithfully kept watch, and the sun was already high in the sky when I awoke. We hung up the strips of bear’s flesh, to give them a drying before we packed them to carry with us. We also did up a portion of the fresh meat, which would, we calculated, last us for some time. Then, having taken a late breakfast, we mounted our horses and continued our journey.

It would take too much time, were I to describe the events of the next few days. After continuing on for the time we supposed it would occupy us in reaching home, we were still unable to recognise any of the features of the country. Mike, however, remarked that as forests and hills and rivers were all much alike, it was no wonder that we could not make out where we were. I proposed directing our course eastward, as we should thus certainly come to some of the settlements. Mike thought that we had not got sufficiently far to the north, and advised that we should continue on in that direction. I gave in to him.

Our horses had hitherto held out well, but suddenly Mike’s began to stagger, and, almost before he could throw himself from its back, down the poor animal fell. What had been the cause of the horse’s death we had not knowledge sufficient to ascertain; only one thing was certain,—that it was dead, and that we must take it by turns to ride, and thus get on at a much slower pace. There was no use stopping to mourn our loss, so, having taken off the saddle and bridle, we did them up in a package, and placed them on the back of my steed. We did this lest the dead horse should be recognised as having belonged to the Indians, and some of their friends might discover it and pursue us.

We had, shortly afterwards, a river to cross. True, we might have made a raft, but as we were both good swimmers we determined to trust to our own arms and legs for getting to the other side. After some persuasion we induced the horse to go in; and then, Mike taking the rein, we each of us put a hand on the saddle and swam over, I on one side and Mike on the other. Though swept down for some distance, we got safe on shore at last, but we had to trudge on in our wet clothes. Not only were we wet, but so was our imperfectly dried meat; the consequence was, that when we came to cook it in the evening it was scarcely eatable. Our clothes, too, were damp when we lay down at night.

I awoke shivering the next morning, though the fire was still blazing near me; and when I tried to get up I was unable to stand. Mike was in a state of great distress. The remainder of our provisions had become worse; but even had the food been of the most delicate description, I could not have touched it.