CHAPTER XXVIII.

“OLD EPHRAIM.”

Oscar and his guide enjoyed some splendid runs after they gave up still-hunting and took to the saddle; and Big Thompson, who had been surprised at the skill the boy exhibited in stalking, and the success that attended him, was perfectly astonished when he saw him ride.

His seat was easy and graceful; and, although he seemed to make no effort to keep it, he was never unhorsed. In the ardor of the chase he seemed to forget everything except the game before him.

With his bridle flying loose in the wind, and his hands grasping his rifle, which he carried ready for a shot, he would press close upon the flanks of a flying herd, single out the best buck in it, and follow him at headlong speed through the thickest woods, over the roughest ground, and down declivities that in his sober moments he would have hesitated to descend at a walk; and when at last the elk’s trot was broken and his spirit began to flag, the loud report of the breech loader would announce that that run was over.

It was surprising how soon he and the pony came to have unlimited confidence in each other. The little horse entered into the sport with as much eagerness as Oscar did; and he would face every thicket and take every leap that came in his way, all the while straining every nerve to bring his rider to close quarters with the animal he had selected. And it was surprising, too, how quickly he learned which animal it was that Oscar wanted to bring to bay.

After he had followed him through a few of his windings, guided by his rider’s hand, he would take up the pursuit on his own responsibility, and stick close to that particular elk, paying no attention to the other members of the herd.

During these runs Thompson always kept a little in the boy’s rear, advising and encouraging him, except when that big elk was started, and then he would take the lead, if he could, and try his best to secure him; but this elk seemed to bear a charmed life.

A good many bullets had been sent after him, and sometimes the hunters were positive that he had been hard hit; but the next time they jumped him—and they saw him almost every time they went to the upper end of the valley—he would throw his heavy antlers back on his shoulders, stick his nose straight out before him, and trot off as rapidly as ever.

“I am afraid we’ll have to give it up,” said Oscar one day, as they were slowly working their way homeward after another unsuccessful attempt to bag the big elk.

They had not been entirely unsuccessful, for Oscar had brought down a specimen with which he would have been quite satisfied if he had never seen that other buck.

This specimen was slung across the mule’s back. It was easier to get the game home in that way than it was to haul it on a drag.

“Look a-yere, perfessor!” exclaimed the guide. “Ye said somethin’ t’other day ’bout sendin’ me back to the fort, didn’t ye?”

“Yes, I did,” replied Oscar. “There are several persons in the States who ought to know what I am doing out here; and besides, I believe there are letters for me at the fort.”

“All right,” said the guide. “Now jest take my advice, an’ let that ole buck alone till I come back. If ye keep on foolin’ with him the fust thing ye know he’ll take that herd o’ his’n off to some other valley, an’ then ye’ll have to give him up, sure. It’s a wonder to me that he haint tuk ’em off long ago. If he stays yere we’ll have him as sartin as he’s a elk.”

“If we can get him when you come back why can’t we get him now?” asked Oscar.

“Kase we aint got what we want, that’s why. I’ve got somethin’ to hum that’ll fetch a muel-deer every time; an’ seems to me that it had oughter fetch that thar buck too. When I come back I’ll bring it with me.”

“What in the world is it?”

“Wal, now, perfessor, if I promise ye, honor bright, that ye shall have that thar buck to take back to the States with ye, hadn’t ye oughter be satisfied with that?”

Oscar thought he had, but still it was hard work to control his curiosity.

The boy had often talked of sending his guide to the fort to mail some letters he had written, and to bring back any addressed to himself that the colonel might have in his possession; and Big Thompson had as often declared his readiness to start as soon as the weather and the travelling would permit.

There had been several days during the last three weeks on which it stormed so violently that the hunters were confined within doors.

Oscar passed those stormy days in writing letters, and jotting down in his diary the particulars of such hunting expeditions as he thought worth preserving, while the guide smoked his pipe and meditated.

After these storms the guide’s chances for making the journey seemed greatly lessened.

The snow was now more than a foot deep on a level in the valley; and Big Thompson said that in the gorges, and on the exposed prairie, where the wind had a full sweep, the drifts must be twenty feet deep.

“An’ the longer I wait the wuss the goin’ will git,” said he, as he lay on his blanket that night, watching Oscar, who was busy with the elk he had shot during the day. “I’ll try it to-morrer.”

And he did.

When it was four o clock by Oscar’s watch breakfast had been disposed of, and the guide, having provided himself with a few pounds of crackers and several slices of cooked venison—all of which he wrapped up in his blankets, and carried over his shoulder, slung on his rifle’s barrel—left the cabin in company with his employer, and led the way toward the gulch that ran from the valley to the prairie.

But he did not go far into the gulch. It was filled with drifts, and one glance at them was enough for Oscar, who urged the guide to give it up and go back to the cabin.

“It would not be many days,” he said, “before a crust would form over the newly fallen snow, and then he could make the attempt with every hope of success.”

But Big Thompson, being made of sterner stuff, declared that, having got so far on his way, he would not turn back until he was compelled to do so.

He asked Oscar to repeat the messages he wished to send to the various officers at the post, told him to go straight back to the cabin, and be very careful of himself during his absence, and then shook him warmly by the hand and set out on his lonely journey.

The boy watched him as long as he remained in sight, but instead of going back to camp, as he had been told to do, he built a fire under the bluff, and sat down beside it to await the guide’s return.

“He’ll be back pretty soon,” thought Oscar, “and I wish I had brought the coffee-pot with me, for he will need something to refresh him.”

Sure enough, Big Thompson returned just before noon (it was a little after daylight when he took leave of his employer), covered with snow from head to foot, and as nearly exhausted as a man like him could be.

The snow was so deep and soft that he had gone scarcely five miles up the gorge before he was glad to turn back.

It was a fortunate thing for him that he did so, for on the very next day the weather suddenly changed, and a “blizzard,” such as Big Thompson himself had not often seen, and which continued for thirty-six hours, roared through the hills.

If the guide had gone on toward the fort the storm would have overtaken him on the prairie; and Oscar might have been left to pass the rest of the winter alone, and to find his own way out of the hills in the spring.

On the fourth day the skies cleared, and the guide, who had made a pair of snow shoes, was ready to set out again as soon as he saw indications of settled weather.

The snow in the valley was too deep for hunting on horseback, and Oscar and his companion were obliged to go on foot.

The first day on which the weather permitted them to go out of doors they spent in making the rounds of their traps, one going up and the other down the valley, and the next they passed in company, hunting for nothing in particular, but ready to knock over any animal that came in their way, provided he was worth a charge of powder and lead.

It was on the afternoon of this day that our hero saw a sight he did not soon forget.

He and his companion, after taking lunch on the bank of the brook, set out to beat a thick grove in the upper end of the valley, in which the herds of elk always sought concealment when pressed by the hunters.

Oscar had been instructed to follow the stream, which here ran through a wide but shallow gorge, while the guide made a circuit of a mile or two, crossed the gorge at the upper edge of the timbers, and came down on the other side, hoping to drive something within reach of the boy’s breech loader.

Neither of them had had a chance for a shot during the day, and everything seemed to indicate that they were destined to go home empty-handed.

Oscar had been out of sight of the guide for an hour or more. He was walking slowly up the gorge, moving with that stealthy step which he had practised so often that it was becoming a confirmed habit with him, and as he rounded the base of a lofty rock, under whose cover he had stopped a few minutes to listen and peep through the wood on each side of him, he found himself on the brow of a little hill, and within less than twenty yards of an enormous grizzly bear.

The boy knew that the animal belonged to this species, because he could distinctly see the erect mane between the shoulders, the dark stripe extending along the back from the base of the skull to the tail, the white tips of the brownish-yellow hair with which the body was covered, the pale muzzle, and the huge feet, with their sabre-like claws.

The animal was lying down on the sunny side of an overhanging rock, but he was not asleep.

His head was raised, his eyes were fastened upon a thicket on the opposite side of the little glade in which the rock stood, and his whole attitude indicated that he was listening intently.

A moment after Oscar discovered him he arose to his feet;, and the mane between his shoulders bristled like the hair on the back of an angry dog’s neck.

The young hunter’s heart seemed to stop beating. If the bear had looked large while he was lying down he looked four times larger when he got up.

How any man could willingly risk his life in an encounter with a beast like that Oscar could not understand.

Trembling with fear lest the bear should suddenly turn his head and discover him, Oscar drew back quickly behind his rock, whispering softly to himself:

“It is Old Ephraim, as sure as the world!”

This was the name that Big Thompson almost invariably applied to an animal of this species. He seldom called it a grizzly.