The Red Man's Revenge, Robert Michael Ballantyne [if you liked this book txt] 📗

began to exhibit unwonted signs of severity. It had begun earlier, and continued later than usual. The snow averaged three feet deep in the plains and four feet in the woods, and the cold was intense, being frequently down to forty-five degrees below zero of Fahrenheit's scale, while the ice measured between five and six feet in thickness on the rivers.

But the great, significant, and prevailing feature of that winter was snow. Never within the memory of man had there been such heavy, continuous, persistent snow. It blocked up the windows so that men had constantly to clear a passage for daylight. It drifted up the doors so that they were continually cutting passages for themselves to the world outside. It covered the ground to such an extent that fences began to be obliterated, and landmarks to disappear, and it weighted the roofs down until some of the weaker among them bid fair to sink under the load.

"A severe winter" was old Mr Ravenshaw's usual morning remark as he went to the windows, pipe in hand, before breakfast. To which his better half invariably replied, "Never saw anything like it before;" and Miss Trim remarked, "It is awful."

"It snows hard--whatever," was Angus Macdonald's usual observation about the same hour. To which his humble and fast friend Peegwish--who assisted in his kitchen--was wont to answer, "Ho!" and glare solemnly, as though to intimate that his thoughts were too deep for utterance.

Thus the winter passed away, and when spring arrived it had to wage an unusually fierce conflict before it gained the final victory over ice and snow.


CHAPTER TWELVE.


VICTORY!

But before that winter closed, ay, before it began, a great victory was gained, which merits special mention here. Let us retrace our steps a little.

One morning, while Ian Macdonald was superintending the preparation of breakfast in some far-away part of the western wilderness, and Michel Rollin was cutting firewood, Victor Ravenshaw came rushing into camp with the eager announcement that he had seen the footprints of an _enormous_ grizzly bear!

At any time such news would have stirred the blood of Ian, but at that time, when the autumn was nearly over, and hope had almost died in the breast of our scholastic backwoodsman, the news burst upon him with the thrilling force of an electric shock.

"Now, Ian, take your gun and go in and win," said Victor with enthusiasm, for the youth had been infected with Rollin's spirit of gallantry.

"You see," Rollin had said to Victor during a confidential _tete-a-tete_, "ven a lady is in de case ye must bow de head. Ian do love your sister. Ver goot. Your sister do vish for a bar-claw collar. Ver goot. Vell, de chance turn up at last--von grizzly bar do appear. Who do shot 'im? Vy, Ian, certaintly. Mais, it is pity he am so 'bominibly bad shot!"

Victor, being an unselfish fellow, at once agreed to this; hence his earnest advice that Ian should take his gun and go in and win. But Ian shook his head.

"My dear boy," he said, with a sigh, "it's of no use my attempting to shoot a bear, or anything else. I don't know what can be wrong with my vision, I can see as clear and as far as the best of you, and I'm not bad, you'll allow, at following up a trail over hard ground; but when it comes to squinting along the barrel of a gun I'm worse than useless. It's my belief that if I took aim at a haystack at thirty yards I'd miss it. No, Vic, I must give up the idea of shooting altogether."

"What! have you forgotten the saying, `Faint heart never won fair lady?'" exclaimed Victor, in surprise.

"Nay, lad, my memory is not so short as that, neither is my heart as faint as you seem to think it. I do intend to go in and win, but I shall do it after a fashion of my own, Vic."

Rollin, who came up at the moment and flung a bundle of sticks on the fire, demanded to know what "vas the vashion" referred to.

"That I won't tell you at present, boys," said Ian; "but, if you have any regard for me, you'll make me a solemn promise not in any way to interfere with me or my plans unless you see me in actual and imminent danger of losing my life."

"Jus' so," said Rollin, with a nod, "ye vill not step in to de reskoo till you is at de very last gasp."

Having obtained the requisite promise, Ian set off with his comrades to examine the bear's track. There could be but one opinion as to the size of the grizzly which had made it. As Victor had said, it was enormous, and showed that the animal had wandered about hither and thither, as if it had been of an undecided temperament. Moreover the track was quite fresh.

Of course there was much eager conversation about it among the friends; carried on in subdued tones and whispers, as if they feared that the bear might be listening in a neighbouring bush. After discussing the subject in every point of view, and examining the tracks in every light, they returned to the camp, at Victor's suggestion, to talk it over more fully, and make preparations for the hunt. Ian, however, cut short their deliberations by reminding his comrades of their promise, and claiming the strict fulfilment of it.

"If this thing is to be undertaken by me," he said, "I must have it all my own way and do the thing entirely by myself."

"Nobody objects to your having it all your own way," retorted Victor, somewhat testily, "but why should you be so secret about it? Why not give a fellow some sort of idea what your plan is, so that, if we can't have the pleasure of helping you, we may at least enjoy the comfort of thinking about it?"

"No, Vic, no. I won't give you a hint, because my plan is entirely new, and you would laugh at it; at least it is new to me, for I never heard of its having been attempted with grizzlies before, though I have heard of it in connection with other bears. Besides, I may fail, in which case the less that is known about my failure the better. Only this much will I say, the idea has been suggested to me by the formation of the land hereabouts. You know there is a gap or pass in the rocks just ahead of us, through which the bear seems to have passed more than once in the course of his rambles. Well, that gap is the spot where I will make my attempt. If you follow me to that gap I will at once return to camp and let you manage the matter yourselves."

"Well, well, do as you please," said Victor, with a laugh, "and the sooner you set about it the better. Rollin and I will ride away some miles in the opposite direction and see if we can't get hold of a wild goose for supper."

"Ha! perhaps de grizzly vill get hold of anoder and a vilder goose for supper," said Rollin, with a shake of his head.

When his companions had departed, Ian Macdonald cleaned his gun carefully and loaded with ball; then placing his axe in his belt beside his scalping-knife, he proceeded with long and rapid strides towards the gap or pass above referred to. The bear's track led through this pass, which was a narrow cut, not more than thirty feet wide, in a steep rocky ridge with which the country at that place was intersected for a considerable distance. The ridge itself, and the pass by which it was divided, were thickly covered with trees and dense undergrowth.

The floor of the pass was level, although rugged, and the rocks on either side rose in a sheer precipice, so that whoever should attempt to penetrate without wings to the region beyond must needs go by that narrow cut.

Arrived at the middle of the pass, where it was narrowest, Ian leant his gun against the precipice on one side, took off his coat, tucked up his sleeves, grasped his axe, and attacked a mighty tree. Like Ulysses of old, he swung the axe with trenchant power and skill. Huge chips flew circling round. Ere long a goodly tree creaked, groaned, and finally fell with a crash upon the ground. It was tough work. Ian heaved a sigh of satisfaction and wiped his streaming brow as he surveyed the fallen monarch. There was another king of the same size near to the opposite precipice, which he felled in the same way. Both monarchs mingled and severely injured their royal heads in the middle of the pass, which thus became entirely blocked up, for our woodsman had so managed that the trees fell right across it.

Next, Ian attacked the united heads, and with great labour hewed a passage through them, near to a spot where a large boulder lay. Selecting another forest king, Ian cut it so that one end of it fell on the boulder. The result of all this hewing and guiding of the falling monarchs was that the only available track through the pass was a hole about four feet in diameter, with a tree of great weight suspended above it by the boulder.

To chop off the branches and convert this latter tree into a log did not take long. Neither did it take much time or exertion to fashion a sort of support, or trigger, in the shape of a figure 4, immediately under the log, so as to obstruct the hole before mentioned. But to lower the log gently from the boulder on to this trigger without setting it off was a matter of extreme difficulty, requiring great care and much time, for the weight of the log was great, and if it should once slip to the ground, ten Ian Macdonalds could not have raised it up again. It was accomplished at last, however, and several additional heavy logs were leaned upon the main one to increase its weight.

"If he returns this way at all, he will come in the evening," muttered Ian to himself, as he sat down on a stump and surveyed his handiwork with a smile of satisfaction. "But perhaps he may not come back till morning, in which case I shall have to watch here all night, and those impatient geese in the camp will be sure to disturb us on the plea that they feared I had been killed--bah! and perhaps he won't come at all!"

This last idea was not muttered; it was only thought, but the thought banished the smile of satisfaction from Ian's face. In a meditative mood he took up his gun, refreshed the priming and slightly chipped the flint, so as to sharpen its edge and make sure of its striking fire.

By that time it was long past noon, and the hunter was meditating the propriety of going to a neighbouring height to view the surrounding country, when a slight noise attracted his attention. He started, cocked his gun, glared round in all directions, and held his breath.

The noise was not repeated. Gradually the frown of his