CHAPTER 22
The sky turned clear the week after New Years. The white mountains stood out crisp and solid against the blue sky, and so close that you could almost reach out and touch them.
"I don't know when I ever saw 'em so white," Irish said. "Or so tall. A hundred feet of that must be snow!"
"I tell you, boys, it's going to be a great spring," the Colonel declared. They were all lounging on the veranda, watching the falling sun gradually burn the white mountains gold. They were usually not very sentimental about the beauty of the lonely land they had chosen to make their home--at least not out loud. But there were times like this when a bit of strong feeling could not help shining through.
"Yessiree," the Colonel went on, "with all that snow up there just waiting to melt down on us, and all the rain we had all fall, there has to be plenty of water in the spring, and that means deep thick range grass."
"It better be deep," Injun grumbled. "With all that snow in the high meadows, it'll be June before we can get the cows up to the summer range."
They all grumbled their agreement. It was so hard to have a perfect year. Good luck trickling in one end often meant bad luck pouring out the other. Heavy snow in the winter meant plenty of grass in the spring, but at the same time it meant that they would lose more cows and calves to the cold and storm. Not to mention bears and wildcats driven by hunger down out of their natural range. If they had a mild winter, the cows might come through in good shape, only to grow lean on the sparse spring pasture.
"There's no hope for it," Colonel McFarlie told them. "Sooner or later, we've got to irrigate. Raising beef will be a whole lot less chancy when we're raising our own hay and corn."
The men all groaned. Like true knights of the range, they could not see themselves digging ditches or following along behind a horse and plow.
"Just hold off a year or two," Smokey Joe said earnestly. "I got almost enough salted away. Just hold off till I got me enough for my own place."
"Yeah," echoed Missouri. As the youngest, he could be counted on to be the stoutest defender of the oldest cowboy prejudices. "When the time comes you think you have to turn your cowboys into farm hands, that's when we say good-bye. We'll be sorry to leave you, Colonel."
"Where do you boys think you can go?" McFarlie asked, more amused than offended. "It'll be the same all over. Go ahead--buy your own spreads. Dig your own ditches. But there will be ditches. And there'll be hay fields. Why do you think I'm sending my boys to that fancy agricultural college? To learn about the scientific way of raising cattle. It's coming. You can't stop it."
They grumbled. So it was coming. Well, they just prayed it could be put off a year, and another, until after their time.
But even as they killed time on the veranda and admired the mountains and the sky, there was the smell of something in the air that the old hands could identify well enough, a change in the weather that sprouted on the northwestern horizon and grew until it filled the whole sky. Then the sky dropped right down on top of them and sat there for two days, damp and surly, until it finally let go with a wild howl of wind and snow. It was the storm of the season. More than that, it grew and grew until it was the storm of the decade, the storm of the century, even. It was the blizzard that for years to come they would measure other blizzards by, and tell their grandchildren how they weathered the great storm of '87, the snow drifting deeper and the wind howling fiercer with each new telling.
"I hope the cows is all safe up in the canyons," Irish grumbled cheerfully in the cramped coziness of the bunkhouse. "If there's any out there on the open range gettin' pushed along by the wind, they'll drift to Kansas before they stop--that is if we don't have the job of chopping them out with icepicks."
All the time, the blizzard raged. The wind whipped around the shoulder of the hill blowing the smoke back down the stove pipe and dumping such a big drift against the bunkhouse door that they had to climb out the window in order to shovel it out of the way.
Not that they had any place to go. In this blizzard, the cows were at the mercy of their own common sense and the grace of God. The lucky ones were huddled under oak trees in the box canyons. Probably this first storm of the winter would not harm too many of them. Their own stored fat and their shaggy coats would see them through. It would be the late storms of February and March that would take their toll on weakened cows.
Only Rabbit had to go out in the storm. He had to milk the cows. After a frightening afternoon lost in the white nothingness between the ranch house and the barn, he rigged up a rope to guide his way. But he didn't have any confidence even in that, and by the second day he had moved into the barn with the cows. It was cold, but he bundled up in straw and old rags and felt warmer than he would have felt struggling out into that white desert.
And his bunkhouse buddies sat around in their prison, grumbling that Rabbit was not there to get the fire going in the morning or to fetch more coal and firewood. There was nothing to do but curse and play cards and sleep and complain about the noise and each other's smell. On the first day, they struggled to the house for dinner, but that was too much hard work, so they lugged back bacon, beans, and flour and fixed their own meals camp-style on the pot-bellied stove.
Even when the clouds had given up their burden, they could hardly tell it, because the wind still howled and drove the fallen snow straight ahead of it, scouring the tips of the ridges and filling up the hollows.
Later there were times when the wind died down, or nearly down, and the cowboys bundled up in mufflers and nor'westers and tramped out into the white world, just to get out of the cramped and stinking bunkhouse, to empty the slops and trudge to the kitchen for canned peaches and fresh pancakes. Afterwards they would drift over to the stable to quiet and feed the restless horses and mend the gear with stiffened fingers, or gather in the barn to chew the fat with Rabbit while he milked the cows.
"What's gotten into you, Rabbit?" Stace asked the young'un, who had turned around and knocked over the bucket of milk he had just set down.
"Your mind sure isn't on milking. Are you worried about something? Your folks, maybe?"
Rabbit blushed and nodded. "I never been away from them in a storm before. I just hope they're all right."
"This blizzard can't last forever," Stace assured him.
"Just as soon as it lets up, and we're out on the range digging out cows, I'll ride up and see how your folks are."
"Gee, would you?" Rabbit exclaimed, his face lighting up.
So it did let up eventually, and the sun blanched fitfully on waves of frigid white; and Stace struggled up to the mountain cabin, well stocked with bacon and beans and coffee and canned milk, just in case the old couple should be needing something. They were glad to see him, and even more glad to hear that Rabbit was safe and well.
"Your son's fine," Stace assured them. "He's getting along just great, in fact. The boys are all teaching him to be a cowboy. You should see how he can ride now, after just a couple of months. You probably will, before long. He's filled out so much that he'll have to get up here soon or you won't recognize him at all."
"That's good," the old man said. "That's wonderful to hear." But something in his eyes didn't go with the satisfaction in his words.
"What's wrong?" Stace demanded. "I can tell something is. You've had trouble. Not with the Colonel, I hope."
The old man shook his head. "It's the old cow. She wasn't much for milking, but she gave us all she had. The beast got her."
"The beast! There really is a beast?"
"You remember I told you about her when Rabbit and you was here. I'm sure I did. Sometimes it seems like he's the only thing worth talking about up here. Most years he seems like a legend, but not this year. I seen him myself-- Big as a pine log, he was. I reckon that storm druv him down out'n the high country, looking for the Colonel's fat cows. He smelt my old Bessie and got her right in her stall. You never heered such screams out'n a cow. I can tell you, It tore my heart right out'n me. But there was nothing I could do."
He looked over at the woman and there passed between them a silent communication of their mutual helplessness.
Later he took Stace out and showed him the shed, the smashed door, and the bloody stall. "I'm sorry about your cow," Stace told him. "But don't you fret too much. Come spring, Rabbit and I will see you get another cow. The Colonel owes Rabbit
The old man sighed but looked pleased at the mention of Rabbit. "Just as long at the young'un's all right."
Stace told the Colonel about the beast. Nobody had seen any sign of it on the winter range. But maybe in some hidden box canyon it was feasting on Double Bar M cows.
"Be careful," McFarlie warned them. "Don't go out without your rifles. Whatever sort of beast he is, he has to be considered dangerous."
CHAPTER 23
"All right, you bunkhouse loafers," Colonel McFarlie roared. "It's time you started working off all that bacon and beans you've been gobbling down the past few weeks with nothing to rub it off your behinds. Up and at 'em. Let's those cows out of the drifts."
So they rode out in pairs. They bundled up heavy against the wind and stocked their saddle bags to ride big circles east and west, bedding down for two or three nights in the line cabins. These were rude huts that the wind hardly bothered to go around, but back in the warm weather they had been stocked with firewood and emergency food so that nowhere on the range was any cowboy more than half a day's ride from some sort of shelter.
"You're stuck with Hungry," Irish said to Injun when they had drawn for partners. "Maybe you can lose him out there in a drift, and we won't have to be bothered looking at his mug."
Hungry scowled and doubled up his fists, but he said nothing. Irish would never badmouth a man behind his back, but he wasn't afraid to say it in his hearing. As a matter of fact, none of the other cowboys could stand Hungry much, he was so sulky and bad-tempered. And several days cooped up with him in the bunkhouse had worn their patience thin.
Hungry had never gotten over his humiliation at the bronco busting two months ago. Since he was not willing to believe that Rabbit could have thought up such a stunt and carried it out all by himself, he carried a grudge against the rest of the bunkhouse for helping him with it. Nothing more had been said about Smokey Joe's retirement as bronco buster, partly because there was no more busting to do until spring, anyway, and partly because with Hungry in the mood he was in, any decision at all was bound to cause trouble.
Hungry kept threatening to leave the ranch, and the Colonel did not know whether to be sorry or relieved. He thought Hungry had the makings of a good cowboy, a good bronco-buster, even a good foreman some day. Maybe he would get off on the right foot somewhere else. Or maybe he never would if he didn't get straightened out here. The Colonel felt about his cowboys as if they were his own sons. He wanted a crew that could work well together, but he was also concerned that each would solve his own problems. He tried to talk to the other cowboys about Hungry, but the harder he tried to smooth things over, the moodier Hungry got and the more impatient the rest became. They took to soaking Hungry's blankets, knotting up his clothes, and playing all the old little tricks that Hungry used to pull on Rabbit.
But Hungry did his job. Sullenly and uncompanionably he rode out with his assigned partner and hunted strays, shoving them through drifts, pulling them out of potholes, and herding them into ridges nearer the ranch where the wind had blown away the overlay of snow and the cows could scrape down to the grass. Hungry would have like to pair up with Missouri, his one last friend, but the firm rule was that the younger cowboys rode with the older, more experienced hands.
They never saw the beast, but they came across stark evidence of this raids--half devoured carcasses of steers and heifers. He never came back to finish off a carcass--what beast would?--preferring warm blood to frozen meat.
They all took their turns riding the line. They would ride out for two or three days and come in for a few days to thaw out and rest their ponies while another crew rode out. Even the Colonel took his turn, working as hard and getting as cold as any of them. Even Shorty, who almost seems to thrive on the bracing air. Everybody knew that his good spell would probably not last, any more than the one before and the one before that. But work was Shorty's one excuse for remaining at the ranch.
So he took his turn eagerly, while his bunkhouse mates watched out for him and tried to do the best they could for him.
One morning it was Shorty's turn to ride out with Hungry. Irish roused and looked over at him as he swung his legs out on the cold floor and sat hunched over the edge of his bunk and shaking. Rabbit had long ago fed the fire and gone out to milk the cows, so it wasn't as if the air was icy.
"What's the matter, Shorty?" Irish demanded. "You got a spell coming on?
"No--no, nothing like that," Shorty mumbled. "I'm just a might creaky."
"Creaky my foot!" Irish came over and laid a hand on Shorty's damp forehead. "You're burning up. You crawl right back in that bed. I'll fetch Wirter."
"No! I'll be all right, soon's I get the old blood stirrin' a little. It's my day to ride." Shorty started to get up, but he sank back down coughing and shuddering.
"You can't ride in that shape. Hungry can't be pulling cows out of drifts and you, too."
"I cain't let him down," Shorty said feebly.
"Tell you what. I'll ride for you today, and you can take my turn next week when you're feeling better. How'd that be?"
"You don't think you'd mind? I hate to be a bother."
Irish clapped him cheerfully on the back, almost collapsing him. "'Tain't no bother. We be mates bain't we? All for one and one for all. You'd do the same for me if I was feelin' porely, wouldn't you?"
Shorty smiled weakly at the absurdity of that strapping red-cheeked fellow ever being sicker than he was, but he was too weak to pretend to put up a fight. Certainly he was too week to ride. So Irish saddled up and rode out with the irritated Hungry.
The next night Shorty was much worse. Between the coughing and the fever, he could hardly rest, because he had to sleep half-sitting up to keep from choking to death. Wirter had him moved to a spare room in the ranch house, where he could look after him, and where Shorty would not keep the rest of the men awake all night with his coughing.
Late the next day, Hungry rode in alone.
"Where's Irish?" they all demanded.
"How should I know?" Hungry retorted irritably.
"You were his pardner," Injun thundered.
"That doesn't mean we stayed together," Hungry snapped. But they were not about to let him mosey off without any explanation
"He insisted on riding up to visit the old couple," he said, avoiding mentioning Rabbit even obliquely. "I didn't want to, so I came home."
"You shouldn't have left him alone," McFarlie admonished him. "I told you always to stick together. It isn't safe."
"Aw, he's old enough to look after hisself," Hungry grumbled. McFarlie could tell from his manner that there had been a heated argument. "I don't see why I had to go up there just because he was fool enough to want to wade up that mountain trail."
What was done was done. There wasn't any point in going on and on about it. But none of the others liked it, Irish out there alone. Hungry, they felt, had betrayed his trust.
That night Irish's horse came limping in to the stable. He had great gashes on his flanks where he had been raked by giant claws. He was weak from loss of blood, and his eye was wide with remembered terror.
"I'm going after him," Stace shouted. He sprinted to the bunkhouse and began pulling on extra pants and a shirt. Rabbit came running after him.
"Let me come with you!"
Stace just stood there looking at him.
"I can ride good enough now," Rabbit's voice came in urgent short breaths. "Irish taught me how."
"That's right, he did," Stace answered. "Okay--it's time you learned what the world is all about. Run and fetch the saddle bags."
Wirter always kept several saddle bags hanging just inside the kitchen door, stuffed with food and other emergency provisions a cowboy might need to ride off with at a moment's notice.
In a matter of minutes, the two searchers were ready and their horses saddled. Stace fixed Rabbit up with Vagabond, Irish's second pony, because he was a good, steady horse, and if Irish was hurt he would do best to come home on a mount that knew him.
It was in the back of everybody's mind that Hungry should have volunteered to go, but he had just gotten back himself and was cold and tired. Besides, Stace hadn't given anybody else the chance.
Stace and Rabbit rode all night. The horses snorted and grumbled, but it was in their favor that the wind was down and the light layer of cloud did not wholly blot out the bright moon. On the crisp white snow, the trail of the wounded pony was easy to read even in the dim light.
And it was clear enough, when they found Irish, or what was left of him, in a snowbank, all covered with blood and frozen in a queer and unreasonable tangle .
"You'd better not look," Stace shouted to Rabbit. But it was too late. Rabbit went dead white and slipped from Vagabond. Stace found him on his knees retching into a snowbank.
Rabbit sobbed and retched, loathing the way he was acting but unable to help himself. Stace could only stand by and watch, feeling sick and helpless himself.
"Come on," he said at last. "Try and pull yourself together. We've got to get him back."
"I can't, I can't," Rabbit wailed, still crouching in the snow, trying to keep from turning and accidentally seeing that awful frozen heap in the snow. Stace had to manage it himself, and it was a hard job; for frozen the way Irish's body was,
Stace could not get it onto the back of a horse. Stace had to rig up a sort of sled out of his nor'wester and lariat so that the horse could pull the burden along behind.
"Come on, little buddy," he said. "It's time to take Irish home."
Rabbit clung to him sobbing.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he choked out. "I never seen anybody dead before. Not people."
"It's natural," Stace answered him gently, patting him on the back as Rabbit buried his face in his warm sheepskin coat. "Everybody's got to have a first time, I reckon. Irish was your friend, wasn't he?"
"My--my best friend," Rabbit sobbed.
"Well," Stace told him. "I just hope that when my time comes, I have somebody to cry over me the way you've gotta cry over Irish."
They turned back to the horses and Rabbit stopped short, almost crumpling again.
"Do we have to drag him back like a--an animal?'
"I'm afraid so," Stace said. "But he's all right. It's sort of a sled. You wouldn't want to leave him out here for the wolves, would you?"
Rabbit shook his head. Home. They had to get him home.
When they got back to the ranch house, the sun was clearing the eastern hills. His fever had broken, and Shorty stumbled out onto the veranda, weak and shaking, when he heard the commotion.
"That is it? What is it?" he called out feebly.
"It's nothing," Wirter shouted back. "Get back in bed." But Shorty could see the bundle behind the horse and could guess what it was.
"Gol durn him for bein' up!" Wirter snarled. "You get back in there, Shorty. You'll catch your death."
"What is it? Tell me what it is!"
Wirter signaled the other men to carry the body to the bath house. He hurried over to Shorty.
"You're gonna have to know sooner or later," he said. "It's Irish. The beast got him."
Shorty collapsed in a sobbing heap by the porch rail. "He rode out for me!" he sobbed. "He took my turn. It shoulda been me! It shoulda been me!"
That was the way Rabbit felt. It was cruel and unfair that it was Irish. There was Shorty, whose very profession was death, and he was recovering again. And Irish was dead, who had been more alive than any of them. It just wasn't fair.
Now they were thawing him out, and laying him out the best they could in the bath house, what was left of him. And they couldn't even bury him because of the deep snow.
"I don't want any of you getting any foolhardy ideas of going out after that monster," the Colonel warned them. "It's enough to lose one good man. I want you to stick close to the ranch and not take chances. You're worth more to me than all the cows on the place put together. I don't want to lose any more of you."
The men grumbled and cast sidelong glances at Hungry. His instinct was to defend himself, but he felt as bad as any of them.
CHAPTER24
"Huh--what?" Rabbit stammered into the sleepy darkness. The fire in the pot-bellied stove had long since died away into slumbering embers, and the last echo of evening warmth barely touched the morning chill. A cold hand was shaking him by the shoulder. He clawed his way to the next layer of wakefulness.
"Shhh--come on, Rabbit. Rise and shine." It was Stace. Suddenly Rabbit jerked to full consciousness. He swung his feet onto the bare boards and jerked them back again as the cold tingled through him like a spark of static electricity.
"Brrrr! What time is it?" he whispered hoarsely. He could hear the soft breathing and a few rough snores of the other cowboys sleeping. It was not even starting to get light. "What's the matter?"
"Hurry up and get dressed," Stace whispered back. "You and I are going after bear, pardner."
Stace opened the door of the little cast iron stove. He poked some corncobs into the white crust over the sleeping embers, and soon there was a flicker of light for them to see by.
"Dress as warm as you can," he warned. "There's no telling how long we'll be out." So Rabbit pulled on his other set of long woolen underwear before he slipped into his pants and shirt. Then he put on a couple of pairs of socks and wrapped his feet in pieces of old flannel shirt for good measure. There was plenty of room, because he was stuffing his feet into a pair of old clodhoppers Injun had given him, and nobody had feet as big as Injun's.
"What are we taking for gear?" Rabbit whispered as he pulled on the boots.
"I got it together last night. It's in the stable. Here's some breakfast." Stace handed Rabbit a mug of milk and a piece of cornbread.
"No time for coffee," Stace told him, "but I put some in the saddle bags. We'll stay out through tomorrow if we have to."
"Which tomorrow?" Rabbit wasn't sure whether the present darkness was part of last night or the unpromising dawn.
"The tomorrow after the sun that's going to be shining in our face if we don't hustle. So get hustling."
As they reached their nor'westers down off the pegs in the vestibule, Rabbit noticed that one peg was empty. "Who's not in bed?" he wondered.
"Hungry." Stace told him. "He tiptoed out just before I woke you up."
"Is he running off?"
"I reckon not. I reckon he's doing what we're doing--going after bear. That crazy fool probably thinks he can hog-tie that monster all by himself. He'll get himself chewed up."
"Hooray for the b'ar," Rabbit said crossly, then flushed thinking of Irish. He wouldn't wish that on anybody, not even Hungry. "Are you gonna stop him?"
They let themselves into the stable, and Stace pulled two bulging saddlebags out from behind the saddle rack. Mizpah whinnied a nervous hello.
"We'll follow along and try to be there if and when he needs help," said Stace. Rabbit figured that he had planned to start out after the bear this morning whether he was following Hungry or not. And take Rabbit along.
"Are you sure the critter's a b'ar?" Rabbit asked nervously.
"Of course it's a bear. I don't hold with fire-snorting dragons that come riding out of the moon on silvery beams."
Neither did Rabbit (he supposed), but there was no limit to how big he could imagine bears might get.
"Come on, Mizpah, sooo, boy," Stace crooned to the spooky horse. He bribed him with a handful of oats while he got him saddled and bridled. They saddled up Vagabond again for Rabbit. On the backs of the horses, they piled almost a trading post of guns and tools and showshoes. And a coffee pot.
The horses protested in pathetic neighs but allowed themselves to be coaxed out into the cold darkness. It was a sharper cold than at the height of the blizzard, except for the wind. But the sky was clear, and the air was still as a frozen pond.
The moon hung low and bright over the western hills.
Rabbit looked up in wonder at the twinkling pattern of the sky. He knew the patterns of the stars; but learned from his mother, they were not the patterns Stace would have identified. This ought to be a summer sky. A summer evening sky.
"Do you think Hungry knows where to head for?" Rabbit asked Stace.
"We'll follow him as long as his guess is as good as ours. The Colonel's been having us herd the cows nearer the ranch in hopes the beast was man-shy. But it appears he isn't. There's still some small bunches of cows in the canyons under the North Face. I'll bet he heads for one of them."
They followed Hungry's tracks up along the high ground that ran eastward beyond the cluster of barns and corrals. The snow was crisp and hard-surfaced and crunched down about ankle deep except where it had drifted into hollows. They had no trouble picking up Hungry's trail once they were away from the barns, and they could gain time on him because they could read his trail and avoid the places where he blundered into deep drifts. By the time they got to the hump of the ridge, the first glow of dawn was just beginning to lighten the rim of the eastern horizon. Rabbit rode for a long time in silence until he could no longer keep from asking the question that was gnawing at him.
"How come you brought me along?"
"Didn't you want to come?"
"Oh, sure I did. But I would have thought you'd want somebody who would be more help."
"What makes you so sure you won't be any help?"
"I wasn't yesterday. I got sick."
"I figure everybody has a right to be sick once. But anybody that can cut the heads off chickens the way you do can't be squeamish just on account of a little blood."
"But what if I freeze up, or turn tail and run, or--?"
"You planning to do those things?"
"I ain't planning to, but--"
"Then don't imagine yourself acting that way. Think about being strong and brave. There always has to be a first time. You can shoot well enough, and now you can ride. Sooner or later, you ought to start putting them to use. After all, there isn't a one of those cowboys back there that wasn't a greenhorn sometime."
"I can't think of you as a greenhorn."
Stace laughed. "Well, maybe I am the exception. I could tell you stories about when I was your age, but I don't reckon this is the time to start shaking your confidence in my superior courage or judgment."
Rabbit squinted into the rosy glow that was just beginning to turn the sky and the land pink. "I never know when you're funning me. But I gotta thank you anyways for letting me come along. Even though it is so cold."
The pony under him shivered as if he agreed. At the top of the next rise they could look back and see their shadows stretched far out behind them. The sun hung over the edge of the world red and cold, as if somebody had blown upon it and roused the last fading glow of a burned-up ember. Far ahead, a spot against the sun, they could see the tiny figure of Hungry and his pony cresting the next ridge.
"He's still heading in the right direction," Stace observed. "Let's not get too close for now. He won't be exactly overjoyed to see us."
So they followed behind, keeping Hungry one ridge ahead. So far, they had not seen any signs of the bear. About noon, Stace led them down into a hollow to an oak grove where they built a fire to warm themselves a little and make some coffee.
"I wonder if Hungry is making a fire." Rabbit said.
"Probably not--the jackass," Stace answered. "But he'd better save some of himself and that horse of his. We may be out a long time."
"Do you think we'll find anything today? Colonel McFarlie is gonna be after our hides for taking off."
"He'll get over his mad pretty quick if we kill the bear," Stace told him.
"Will you be sorry if Hungry kills it first?'
"How about you, pardner? You're in this hunt, too."
Rabbit poked some dry sticks into the little mound of fire.
"I don't reckon I'll be the one to kill the b'ar."
"Do you think I should be jealous of Hungry?"
"I know he's jealous of you. I reckon that's why he's out here by hisself."
"Maybe it means more to him, then," Stace said dryly.
"You don't mean to say you'd let him do the killing if you both get the chance?
"Well, by jingo, Rabbit--you wouldn't be jealous of Hungry, would you?"
"I just hope we get the b'ar." Rabbit put a little more stress on the we.
"Just remember what we're out here for," Stace said a little more sternly. "First to avenge Irish, and second to get rid of the bear for the Colonel. If Hungry solves his problem, too, while he's out here, why, then it's all the better for every one, isn't it?"
"I reckon so," Rabbit grumbled, though in fact he reckoned not. Soon the coffee was boiling.
A couple of miles farther, they came upon a bloody sign of the bear. He had run down a heifer, and when it had floundered in a snowdrift, he had charged in and killed it.
"He can't be very hungry now," Stace said, pointing to the great chunks torn out of the flesh. "Let's hope a good meal calms him down and slows him down."
The carcass was not frozen yet, so they knew the beast could not be far ahead of them. He was too heavy not to leave clear tracks even on heavily encrusted snow. And there were the tracks of Hungry, who had dismounted to investigate.
"We'd better close in on them," Stace decided.
"Hungry must really be hungry now," Rabbit observed. They had not come upon any signs of a fire before they found the heifer, and they had a pretty good idea that Hungry would not stop now, with the trail so fresh.
The tracks were heading more or less in the direction of the ranch, but taking a wide swing around it along the base of the escarpment. The bear seemed to know where the cattle would be and where the men would be.
The tracks led them to a cleft in the mountain wall. It was the mouth of a narrow canyon that cut far back into the escarpment.
"Do you know this canyon?" Stace asked Rabbit.
"I think so," Rabbit said, standing up in his stirrups and peering up and down the face of the mountain. "I've been up in all these canyons at one time or another hunting. It's narrow and steep for a couple of miles."
"Can he get out the other end?"
"I don't think so. Up at the other end it opens into a little meadow like a washtub. There's always cows up there. But the walls is steep all around it. I know a hoss couldn't get out. I don't know if a b'ar can."
"Big as he must be," Stace decided, "I don't suppose he's much of a climber."
The canyon was about a quarter of a mile wide at the mouth, but it soon narrowed to a steep vee. There was no trail at all along the bottom, which was littered with rocks under heavily drifted snow. The trail ran up along the mass of jumbled rock, right under the sheer walls of the cliff.
There were in time to see Hungry on his horse, just disappearing into the throat of the canyon.
"That crazy fool's taking his horse in there," Stace snapped. Soon Rabbit could see why it was foolish. The trail was a narrow one for a horse or cow, even in summer, and there was no room for the horse to turn around easily if it had to come out in a hurry. Stace and Rabbit dismounted at the throat of the canyon.
They did not stake their horses but left them with their reins hanging in front. The horses were trained to stand quietly while their reins were dangling, but Stace looped and tied them so they would not drag on the ground.
"We want to give the horses a chance to run for it," Stace told Rabbit, "if the bear takes a notion to come charging back this way."
Stace had a rifle and his six-shooters, and Rabbit slung a shotgun across his back. Riding boots were not made for slogging through snow, but Stace had brought snowshoes. Injun's big clodhoppers were practically like snowshoes for Rabbit. He figured Hungry had been in too much of a hurry to think of them, and that was why he was still on horseback. Rabbit also brought along the ax, slung on his back, along with a coil of rope.
"We're a regular walking hardware," Stace observed. "Did you remember to bring the coffee pot?"
"I know you're funning me this time," Rabbit observed.
They started up the trail along the base of the cliff. The ground dropped away steeply on the outside, sometimes in jumbles of broken rock, sometimes in a fairly smooth slope punctured with sagebrush and fir trees.
"Hungry won't be glad to see us," Rabbit observed.
"If he doesn't need any help, we won't help him," Stace answered grimly, "But I'm not betting he won't.'
Even on horseback, Hungry was not making any better time than they were. They saw messy places in the snow where the horse had slipped, and marks where Hungry led him forward or let him rest. At least he was not pushing the critter too fast. He probably figured as Stace did that once in the canyon the bear would have no other place to go.
Now Hungry was only a few hundred yards ahead, and his horse was picking his way slower than they were on foot. They rounded a corner and saw a wide arc of trail with Hungry just disappearing at the other end.
"Come on, let's close the gap," Stace urged Rabbit. He slipped off the snowshoes and started to trot after the horse, using its footprints to guide him through the deceptive snow. Rabbit followed along as fast as he could.
They rounded another bend and almost bumped into Hungry's horse. The bear had changed his mind, because he was facing them, loping at full charge.
The terrified pony reared and skidded off the trail, cartwheeling down the steep slope. Hungry shot off his back and slid headfirst straight down the bank until he rammed into the trunk of a cedar tree.
The bear charged down the slope after Hungry. Stace barely had time to pull up his rifle and fire, but the slug just buried itself in the beast's thick coat.
But the bear felt it. He turned away from the unmoving Hungry and whirled toward Stace, who was yelling at the top of his lungs and charging down the slope to protect Hungry. They collided in mid-slope. Stace had tossed aside his rifle and got in a couple of shots with his six-shooters, but they had no more effect on the monster than the rifle. The bear gave Stace a swat with a giant paw, and Stace rolled himself into a ball to protect his face and belly. A second swat sent him tumbling on down the slope, the bear charging after.
It looked to Rabbit like a ball game, and Stace was the ball. With every swipe the bear took, Rabbit flinched as great shreds of sheepskin tore loose from Stace's overcoat. The bear's giant claws were dripping as they cut their way through the leather and cloth to Stace's back and arms.
Before he had time to consider what he was doing, Rabbit was down over the slope after them. He swept up Stace's rifle, cocked and fired. It slammed into the bear's side, but still he hardly seemed to notice. Rabbit jammed down the bolt, cussed, tore off his mitten with his teeth, and shoved it again. The shell flew out, and a second bullet slid into the breech. Rabbit pulled up the rifle and fired again. The kick fairly sent him spinning, and this time the bear felt the sting. He reared up and looked at Rabbit, then at Stace. Stace was still curled up, with his head tucked under his shredded arms, a loose ball if the bear hit him again.
Rabbit cocked the gun again and tried to fire, but the bolt jammed. He slammed it and slammed it, sobbing all the while, but it was stuck. The bear started to turn back to Stace.
Rabbit remembered the shotgun slung over his back and struggled to get at it. He fumbled at the catch and finally got it cocked. Bam! Bam! The explosions sent him reeling backwards, but they did their work. The bear was hurt. He turned towards Rabbit. Rabbit tried to kick himself back up the slope as he scrambled in the snow for Stace's six-gun. Bang! bang! into the beast's belly, and then bang! bang! again and that was all the shots. Then Rabbit half glimpsed Stace firing his other six-gun from the ground behind the bear. Then the beast was rearing up to charge. His seven feet looked more like ten. Rabbit could smell his hot, blood-stained breath. His hand reached out, groping, and there was the ax, which had wrenched loose as he scooted back uphill. He had it over his head with both hands, and with a yell he heaved it as hard as he could, just as the bear come down on him. It caught the beast right between the eyes, and the bear's face just seemed to explode in a burst of red as he fell on top of Rabbit, stone dead.
"Are you all right?" The yell seemed to come out of a long tunnel. Rabbit tried to struggle out of the warm, suffocating darkness. He had never dreamed a bear could weigh so much.
"I don't know. I think so," he gasped, pushing himself downhill until he could burrow himself out through the snow under him.
"Is he dead?" Rabbit gasped
"Naw, he decided to take a nap," Stace said. "Tangling with such a scrapper as you just tuckered him out!"
CHAPTER 25
Rabbit scrambled down the bank to Stace, who was lying in the snow gasping and wincing. What was left of his clothes was turning red along with the snow under him.
"Come on, I can't look all that bad," Stace gasped out, and Rabbit realized how sick and shaky he felt.
"I can't help it," he stammered, half laughing and half sobbing. But for a long time he could only kneel in the snow beside Stace and gasp and sob. So Stace felt himself gingerly all over and was relieved to discover that except for a couple of cracked ribs no bones were broken. His heavy coat had protected him to that extent, anyway. But the gashed were deep and ugly. He pulled himself unsteadily to his knees and began scratching op fistfuls of snow and pressing them to the gashes on his face. He as lucky right then that he didn't have a mirror. "Come on," he said, gritting his teeth. "You'd better take a look at our friend. I don't think I could make it in his direction."
"What about him?" Rabbit jumped and looked at the bear. I killed him, didn't I?"
Stace chuckled and winced at the pain. Yes, there were a couple of ribs broken. "Not the bear, dummy. Hungry!"
"Oh," Rabbit gasped. "I forgot all about Hungry."
He scrambled down to where Hungry was lying on his back, head downhill and jammed against the fir tree.
"He's still out cold but he's breathing."
"Regular?" Stace called out.
"I guess so. It sounds like he's asleep."
"Any bones broken?" Stace was crawling up the slope to the trail. It was painful and slow.
Rabbit felt Hungry's arms and under his neck. He wasn't sure what to feel for. "He feels okay, I reckon."
"Well, tie your rope around him, and we'll pull him up. I don't suppose you can carry him up here."
So Rabbit took off his lariat. It seemed easiest to lasso his feet and pull him up feet first instead of trying to turn him around. He managed to scramble up the slope with the other end, and with what help Stace could manage, they hauled him up to the trail.
He began to mutter a little, but he was slow coming around.
"Do you think he'll be all right?" Rabbit asked.
"Oh, sure," Stace said. "He's come off broncos harder than that. A bronco buster's got to have a hard head."
"Too bad he didn't see the fight," Rabbit said wistfully.
"What's the matter? You have me for a witness."
"You? You had your arms over your head all the time. But even so--"
"But what? But they won't believe me?"
"They'll say you made it up just to make me look good. They'll go on thinking you killed the b'ar because they'll reckon you're the sort of man who kills b'ars. They'll say a dumb kid like Rabbit couldn't kill a b'ar."
"Well, hell fire and damnation!" What does it matter what they think? You know what happened. That's what counts, doesn't it?"
"And your knowing."
"And believe me, I'm grateful," Stace said, grimacing.
"I just hope Hungry is. I reckon he wanted to be the hero most of all. He hasn't had much chance since we came into his life."
"I always thought he was the spoiler."
"It depends on your point of view. He's young and dumb, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have feelings."
"And now we've saved his life."
"Kind of a mean trick, isn't it? Your worst enemy, always getting in your way."
"You don't suppose we should help him out, for once?"
"What've you got in mind?"
"Well--you didn't need to kill the b'ar, because everybody figures you could, anyway. And they won't believe I kilt it, even if you was to tell them...." Rabbit paused and took a hard look at Hungry. "Why don't we give it to him?"
"Who--Hungry?" Stace was shocked. "Why would you want to do that? I think you must be in shock."
"Oh, I don't know. He wanted it so much. Maybe he'd have kilt it if we hadn't butted in."
"He'd have gotten himself all chewed up. Besides, I thought you didn't like him."
"He's not so bad, I reckon. He never tried to get back at me for the busted pants."
"Only because he didn't dare. But you do what you please. Only let's get him awake and get out of here."