CHAPTER XII—THE DEFENSE OF THE LOG BRIDGE
“Listen to Buckskin calling him all sorts of names, would you?” exclaimed Andy, a few minutes later.
“If that bear only understood half he’s been called, he just couldn’t stand it a minute longer,” declared Mr. Witherspoon, chuckling, “but the poor old chap’s education has been neglected, so he doesn’t know cowboy lingo. I reckon he never even opens one eye, but keeps dozing right along. He hasn’t lost any cowboy, and so he doesn’t want to be bothered. No good, is it, Buckskin?”
“Don’t look that way, sir,” replied the other, disconsolately, “that’s the trouble with not having the gift of gab. Now, if I was as good a hand at callin’ names, and rattling off the lingo as Puffer Pete, chances are he’d just have to show a leg. Well, here’s to open up a little smoke spell with the boss.”
Accordingly, he bent over, and seemed to be fixing the small tinder he had carried across with him. Now and then he would turn his head and call out something or other to the boys, as though explaining to the boys what he was doing.
“Now she’s all ready for biz,” he finally declared, “watch my smoke, fellers. Hi! here’s looking to you, old man; you’ve just got to wake up, and let us take a look at your mug, you know. There she goes! Whoop-la!”
The watchers saw a wisp of smoke creep up lazily. There did not seem to be any wind to carry it away; and presently it met a back draught, for it appeared to be sucked directly into the yawning crevice at the base of the cliff.
Larger grew the volume of smoke, until quite a good-sized column was oozing out of the brush Buckskin had piled up.
“Now for the scent weed!” he called out.
They saw him carefully place some of this on top of the pile, and toward the back where its odor would be sure to be wafted into the den, with the smoke from the burning wood.
“Wow! that’s fierce!” Buckskin whooped, grabbing hold of his nose with the fingers of his free hand, for he was holding fast to his gun all this time, not knowing when he might have to use it.
Now he was bending down as though listening to catch the first low growl to indicate that Bruin had awakened, and was sniffing at the smoke. Buckskin’s attitude told how he was holding himself in readiness for a lively sprint, just as soon as the signs warned him that the bear was rushing for the exit of the den in a terrible rage at being interrupted in his nap. No sensible cowboy ever wants to come to close grips with an enraged grizzly; he knows too much to risk a terrible death in that way.
It was a period of most intense suspense to both the boys.
All at once they saw the crouching cowboy galvanized into life. He leaped to his feet, and made a lively streak for the little log crossing the gap. No need to ask what induced his haste, for actions spoke louder than words in that case.
“Ready, Andy!” Mr. Witherspoon was heard to say, hoarsely.
This thing of attacking a full-grown grizzly in his native haunts was no child’s play; and even so old a hunter as the owner of Double X Ranch doubtless felt more than a little thrill as he watched to see the head of the monster thrust out of the hole in the wall.
Andy had his kodak on a line with that opening and was crouching there ready to get in some good work. Let Frank have the glory of shooting the bear if he wanted; as for him, he found more solid satisfaction nowadays in getting snapshots of game, than in trying to lay them low.
“Oh!”
It was Andy who gave utterance to this cry. A great dun-colored bulk had rushed directly across the heap of smoking fire-stuff, scattering it to the right, and to the left, as he gave a fearful roar that made the echoes ring.
And right then and there Andy pressed the bulb. He believed he had caught the bear just in the act of throwing the fire every-which-way, as Andy himself expressed it later on.
Immediately he started to turn the film so as to bring around a new and unexposed section. His fingers were quivering with eagerness and nervousness, so that he could hardly hold the camera.
“Steady, Andy; brace up, and take your time!” said Frank, who gave his chum one quick glance to see how near he was to getting in a second snapshot before he and Mr. Witherspoon started to firing.
That seemed to bring Andy to his senses, and the next moment he managed to get his second shot at the bear.
By this time the animal had discovered the running Buckskin, and immediately started in hot pursuit, as if recognizing the human agency that had made his eyes smart so with that pungent smoke; there was now no longer any trouble about arousing the bear’s fury; and Frank realized just why Buckskin, wise fellow that he was, had lost not a second about getting started, when he knew the bear was coming.
He cast one glance over his shoulder as he reached the end of the little log. Discovering the grizzly shuffling along swiftly in his wake, snorting with anger, the cowboy immediately started across the rude bridge. Once he slipped, and for a second or two it looked as though he would drop down twenty feet or more into the gully; but by a desperate effort Buckskin managed to climb up again, and mostly on hands and knees completed the passage.
The bear was still coming on, apparently in no wise daunted by the hot fire that was being poured into him by Frank and Mr. Witherspoon. Every shot Frank took he fully expected to see the huge beast go tumbling over; but in spite of all, the bear kept rushing after Buckskin. Andy was still working his kodak and taking more pictures.
Just as soon as the cowboy managed to crawl upon solid rock he started to dislodge the log. It proved a little more difficult than had been expected. Three times did Buckskin make the effort, and only succeeded in moving the end a few inches on every occasion.
With the bear still coming on, as though capable of standing a hurricane of lead, it began to look serious enough. Should he ever succeed in crossing that log what might not happen to the hunters? Frank felt a cold chill creep over him as he contemplated such a possibility, and realized that the magazine in his Marlin heavy-bore was getting low.
Well, Andy came to the rescue just in time. Dropping his kodak, he sprang to the side of the panting Buckskin.
“Now, together!” he exclaimed, as he took hold of the end of the log.
It slipped from its anchorage just as the grizzly reached the opposite bank. Had they been three seconds later they must have hurled the shaggy monster down with the queer log bridge.
Bruin stopped in his mad advance just in time. He sniffed at the spot where the end of the log had rested, as though wondering how the human enemy could have apparently flown across.
This gave the marksmen a better chance to place their bullets where they were more apt to count. Frank took deliberate aim back of the foreleg. At the same time he was conscious of a feeling of great respect for this brave old fellow, whom nothing could apparently daunt. But they had put their hand to the plow, and there could be no turning back at this late hour. Besides, this beast was bound to be a constant menace to ranchman’s herds from this time on, now that he had learned the secret of securing an easy breakfast from the weaker elements of the cattle drove; and it was of the greatest importance that he be exterminated.
This time when Frank pulled the trigger of his Marlin he saw that he had at last reached a vital organ. The big bear actually weakened and fell over, though still struggling hard to keep on his feet and show a grim front.
“That did for him, Frank; no use to waste any more ammunition!” declared Mr. Witherspoon.
“Well, that was my last shot, anyway, so I couldn’t do anything more until I’d recharged the magazine of my gun,” remarked Frank.
“And unless I’m mistaken, my weapon is in just the same fix,” chuckled the other, “so you can understand what a lot of lead a grizzly can digest before knuckling under.”
“There, the old critter has keeled over, and that’s his last kick,” remarked Buckskin, who was still panting from his recent exertions. “Say, Andy, d’ye want me to snap one off with you and Frank standing by the game? Seems to me you had ought to be seen in some of these here pictures. Reckon I know enough to aim, after you do the focus act, and squeeze that rubber thing.”
“But we’ve got to cross over first, and our bully old bridge is down at the bottom of the hole,” expostulated Andy.
“Oh! here’s another log that will answer just as well,” remarked the ranger, “just looks like these trees once grew here to accommodate anyone who wanted to use a log for a bridge. Everybody take hold, and we’ll soon have it across.”
After some trying they managed to get the log on end near the edge of the gap. It was no trouble, then, to let it fall directly across, and as they had calculated rightly, there was another means of spanning the gulf.
So, one after another, they walked across; in fact Andy and Buckskin were so anxious to see what the grizzly looked like, that they neglected to go back and pick up their guns, which they had carelessly dropped at the time their help was needed in order to move the log. Andy insisted that Uncle Jethro also line up alongside the dead grizzly.
“You helped knock him out, and ought to be here more than me,” he declared, when the rancher showed signs of holding back; and so finally the three were grouped in a manner to allow of the game being shown, while the hunters also appeared in the picture.
After Andy had arranged this to suit him, he gave the camera into the charge of Buckskin, and then went over to take his place alongside Frank and the ranchman.
“Now, look in the finder, and see that you’ve got the bear in the middle of the picture,” Andy sang out. “How about it, Buckskin?”
“She’s all right, Andy; tell me when to give the punch,” came the reply.
“Be sure and hold the camera steady as a rock when you’re going to squeeze the bulb. Now, let her go, Gallagher!” and Andy assumed a pose as he spoke.
Immediately after there was a whoop.
“Right there with the goods, and a regular bull’s-eye at that!” shouted Buckskin. “I’m the boss boy with the picture machine, let me tell you. You see if that ain’t a family group to do you proud! Want any more took, Andy? Just you warble the word and Buckskin, he’ll try to accommerdate you all that’s a-goin’; sure he will. How about standin’ the bar up on his hind legs and take him that way! Wow! holy smoke! look what’s comin’ in on us, would you? Another bar, and bigger nor this un at that? Must be the mate o’ our game, and lookin’ kinder mad at us. Whar’s my gun? What in creation did I do with that six-shot pepper box? Run boys, he’s chargin’ us!”