CHAPTER XXXIV.
The next morning our American companions bade us farewell, and resumedtheir journey; but Captain Finn insisted that Gabriel, Roche, and Ishould not leave him so soon. He pointed out that my steed would not beable to travel much farther, if I did not give him at least two or threedays' repose; as for the horses of my two companions, they had becomequite useless, and our host charged himself with procuring them others,which would carry them back to the Comanches.
Captain Finn's hospitality was not, however, so heavily taxed, forduring the day a flotilla of fifteen canoes stopped before theplantation, and a dozen of French traders came up to the house. Theywere intimate friends of the captain, who had known them for a longtime, and it fortunately happened that they were proceeding with goodsto purchase the furs of the Pawnee Picts. They offered a passage toGabriel and Roche, who, of course, accepted the welcome proposition.They embarked their saddles with sundry provisions, which the good Mrs.Finn forced upon them, while her hospitable husband, unknown to them,put into the canoes a bale of such articles as he thought would beuseful to them during their long journey. The gift, as I afterwardslearned, was composed of pistols and holsters, a small keg of powder,bars of lead, new bits and stirrups, and of four Mackinaw blankets.
At last the moment arrived when I was to part with my friends. I felt abitter pang, and I wept when I found myself alone. However, I consoledmyself with the reflection that our separation was not to be a long one,and, cheered up by the captain, I soon overcame the bitterness of theseparation. Yet, for months afterwards, I felt lonely and tired ofmyself; I had never had an idea how painful it is to part from the onlyfew individuals who are attached to you. My worthy host showed muchinterest in my welfare. As he had some business to transact at the LandOffice in the Arkansas, he resolved that he would accompany me two orthree days on my journey. Five days after the departure of Gabriel andRoche, we crossed the Red River, and soon arrived at Washington, theonly place of any importance in the west of Arkansas.
From Washington to Little Rock, the capital of the state, there is amail-road, with farms at every fifteen or twenty miles; but the captaininformed me they were inhabited by the refuse from other states, andthat west of the Mississippi (except in Louisiana and Missouri) it wasalways safer to travel through the wilderness, and camp out. Weaccordingly took the back-wood trail, across a hilly and romanticcountry, entirely mineral, and full of extinct volcanoes. The quantityof game found in these parts is incredible; every ten minutes we wouldstart a band of some twenty turkeys. At all times, deer were seengrazing within rifle-shot, and I don't think that, on our first day'sjourney over the hills, we met less than twenty bears.
Independent of his love for the wilderness, and his hatred ofbowie-knife men, Captain Finn had another reason for not following themail-road. He had business to transact at the celebrated hot springs,and he had to call on his way upon one of his brothers in-law, a son ofBoone, and a mighty hunter, who had settled in the very heart of themountains, and who made it a rule to take a trip every spring to theRocky Mountains. The second day, at noon, after a toilsome ascent of afew thousand feet, we arrived at a small clearing on the top of themountains, where the barking of the dogs and the crowing of the fowlsannounced the vicinity of a habitation, and, ere many minutes hadelapsed, we heard the sharp report of a rifle.
"Young Boone's own, I declare," exclaimed Finn; "'twas I that gave himthe tool. I should know its crack amidst a thousand. Now mark me, chief,Boone never misses; he has killed a deer or a bear; if the first, searchfor a hole between the fifth and sixth rib; if a bear, look in the eye.At all events, the young chap is a capital cook, and we arrive in goodtime. Did I not-say so? By all the alligators in the swamps! Eh, Boone,my boy, how fares it with ye?"
We had by this time arrived at the spot where the buck lay dead, andnear the body was standing the gaunt form of a man, about forty yearsold, dressed in tanned leather, and standing six feet nine in hismocassins. Though we were within a yard of him, he reloaded his riflewith imperturbable gravity, and it was only when he had finished thatjob that I could perceive his grim features beaming with a smile.
"Welcome, old boy; welcome, stranger; twice welcome to the hunter'shome. I knew somebody was coming, because I saw the pigeons were flyingup from the valley below; and as dried venison won't do after a morningtrip, why, I took the rifle to kill a beast out of my _flock_" Thehunter grinned at his conceit. "You see," he continued, "this place ofmine is a genuine spot for a hunter. Every morning, from my threshold, Ican shoot a deer, a bear, or a turkey. I can't abide living in a countrywhere an honest man must toil a whole day for a mouthful of meat; itwould never do for me. Down Blackey, down Judith, down dogs. Old boy,take the scalping-knife and skin the beast under the red oak."
This second part of the sentence was addressed to a young lad ofsixteen, an inmate of the hunter's cabin; and the dogs, having come tothe conclusion that we were not robbers, allowed us to dismount ourhorses. The cabin was certainly the _ne plus ultra_ of simplicity, andyet it was comfortable. Four square logs supported a board--it was thetable; many more were used _fauteuils_; and buffalo and bear hides,rolled in a corner of the room, were the bedding. A stone jug, two tincups, and a large boiler completed the furniture of the cabin. There wasno chimney: all the cooking was done outside. In due time we feastedupon the hunter's spoil, and, by way of passing the time, Boone relatedto us his first grizzly bear expedition.
While a very young man, he had gone to the great mountains of the Westwith a party of trappers. His great strength and dexterity in handlingthe axe, and the deadly precision of his aim with the rifle, had givenhim a reputation among his companions, and yet they were always talkingto him as if he were a boy, because he had not yet followed theRed-skins on the war-path, nor fought a grizzly bear, which deed isconsidered quite as honourable and more perilous.
Young Boone waited patiently for an opportunity, when one day hewitnessed a terrible conflict, in which one of these huge monsters,although wounded by twenty balls, was so closely pursuing the trappers,his companions, that they were compelled to seek their safety byplunging into the very middle of a broad river. There, fortunately, thestrength of the animal failed, and the stream rolled him away. It hadbeen a terrible fight, and for many days the young man would shudder atthe recollection; but he could no longer bear the taunts which werebestowed upon him, and, without announcing his intention to hiscompanions, he resolved to leave them and bring back with him the clawsof a grizzly bear, or die in the attempt. For two days he watched in thepasses of the mountains, till he discovered, behind some bushes, themouth of a dark cave, under a mass of rocks. The stench which proceededfrom it and the marks at the entrance were sufficient to point out tothe hunter that it contained the object of his search; but, as the sunhad set, he reflected that the beast was to a certainty awake, and mostprobably out in search of prey. Boone climbed up a tree, from which hecould watch the entrance of the cave; having secured himself and hisrifle against a fall, by thongs of leather, with which a hunter isalways provided, fatigue overpowered him, and he slept.
At morn he was awakened by a growl and a rustling noise below; it wasthe bear dragging to his abode the carcase of a buck. When he thoughtthat the animal was glutted with flesh, and sleeping, Boone descendedthe tree, and, leaning his rifle against the rock, he crawled into thecave to reconnoitre. It must have been a terrible moment; but he hadmade up his mind, and he possessed all the courage of his father: thecave was spacious and dark. The heavy grunt of the animal showed that hewas asleep.
By degrees, the vision of Boone became more clear, and he perceived theshaggy mass at about ten feet from him and about twenty yards from theentrance of the cave. The ground under him yielded to his weight, for itwas deeply covered with the bones of animals, and more than once hethought himself lost, when rats, snakes, and other reptiles, disturbedby him from their meal, would start away, in every direction, with loudhissing and other noises. The brute, however, never awoke, and Boone,having
finished his survey, crawled out from this horrid den to preparefor the attack.
He first cut a piece of pitch-pine, six or seven feet long, then, takingfrom his pouch a small cake of bees-wax, he wrapped it round one end ofthe stick, giving it at the extremity the shape of a small cup, to holdsome whisky. This done, he re-entered the cavern, turned to his left,fixed his new kind of flambeau upright against the wall, poured theliquor in the wax cup, and then went out again to procure fire. With theremainder of his wax and a piece of cotton twine, he made a small taper,which he lighted, and crawled in again over the bones, shading his lightwith one hand, till he had applied the flame to the whisky. The liquorwas above proof, and as Boone returned and took up his position nearerthe entrance, with his rifle, it threw up a vivid flame, which soonignited the wax and the pitch-pine itself.
The bear required something more than light to awake him from his almostlethargic sleep, and Boone threw bone after bone at him, till the brutewoke up, growled with astonishment at the unusual sight before him, andadvanced lazily to examine it. The young man had caught up his rifle bythe barrel; he took a long and steady aim, as he knew that he must dieif the bear was only wounded; and as the angry animal raised his paw tostrike down the obnoxious torch, he fired. There was a heavy fall, agroan and a struggle,--the light was extinguished, and all was dark asbefore. The next morning Boone rejoined his companions as they weretaking their morning meal, and, throwing at their feet his bleedingtrophies, he said to them, "Now, who will dare to say that I am nota man?"
The history of this bold deed spread in a short time to even theremotest tribes of the North, and when, years afterwards, Boone fell aprisoner to the Black-feet Indians, they restored him to liberty andloaded him with presents, saying that they could not hurt the greatbrave who had vanquished in his own den the evil spirit of themountains.
At another time, Boone, when hardly pressed by a party of the Flat-headIndians, fell into a crevice and broke the butt of his rifle. He wassafe, however, from immediate danger; at least he thought so, andresolved he would remain where he was till his pursuers should abandontheir search. On examining the place which had afforded him so opportunea refuge, he perceived it was a spacious natural cave, having no otherentrance than the hole or aperture through which he had fallen. Hethanked Providence for this fortunate discovery, as, for the future, hewould have a safe place to conceal his skins and provisions whiletrapping; but as he was prosecuting his search, he perceived withdismay that the cave was already inhabited.
In a corner he perceived two jaguars, which followed his movements withglaring eyes. A single glance satisfied him they were cubs; but amaddening thought shot across his brain; the mother was out, probablynot far; she might return in a moment, and he had no arms, except hisknife and the barrel of his broken rifle. While musing upon his periloussituation, he heard a roar, which summoned all his energy; he rolled aloose mass of rock to the entrance; made it as firm as he could, bybacking it with other stones; tied his knife to the end of hisrifle-barrel, and calmly waited for the issue. A minute passed, when atremendous jaguar dashed against the rock, and Boone needed all hisgiant's strength to prevent it from giving way.
Perceiving that main force could not clear the passage, the animal beganscratching and digging at the entrance, and its hideous roars were soonresponded to by the cubs, which threw themselves upon Boone. He kickedthem away, but not without receiving several ugly scratches, and,thrusting the blade of his knife through the opening between the largestone and the solid rock, he broke it in the shoulder of the femalejaguar, which, with a yell, started away. This respite was fortunate, asby this time Boone's strength was exhausted; he profited by thesuspension of hostility, so as to increase the impediments, in case of anew attack; and reflecting that the mewings of the cubs attracted andenraged the mother, he knocked their brains out with the barrel of hisrifle. During two hours he was left to repose himself after hisexertions, and he was beginning to think the animal had been scaredaway, when another terrible bound against the massive stone forced it afew inches into the cave. For an hour he struggled, till the jaguar,itself tired, and not hearing the mewings of her cubs, retired with apiteous howl.
Night came, and Boone began to despond. Leaving the cave was out ofquestion, for the brute was undoubtedly watching for him; and yetremaining was almost as dangerous, as long watching and continualexertion weighed down his eyelids and rendered sleep imperative. Hedecided to remain where he was, and after another hour of labour infortifying the entrance, he lay down to sleep, with the barrel of hisrifle close to him, in case of attack.
He had slept about three or four hours, when he was awakened by a noiseclose to his head. The moon was shining, and shot her beams through thecrevices at the mouth of the cave. A foreboding of danger would notallow Boone to sleep any more; he was watching with intense anxiety,when he observed several of the smaller stones he had placed round thepiece of rock rolling towards him, and that the rays of light streaminginto the cave were occasionally darkened by some interposed body. It wasthe jaguar, which had been undermining the rock: one after the other,the stones gave way; Boone rose, grasped his heavy rifle-barrel, anddetermined to await the attack of the animal.
In a second or two, the heavy stone rolled a few feet into the cave; thejaguar advanced her head, then her shoulders, and at last, a noiselessbound brought her within four feet of Boone, who at that critical momentcollecting all his strength for a decisive blow, dashed her skull toatoms. Boone, quite exhausted, drank some of her blood to allay histhirst, pillowed his head upon her body, and fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning Boone, after having made a good meal off one of thecubs, started to rejoin his companions, and communicated to them hisadventure and discovery. A short time afterwards, the cave was storedwith all the articles necessary to a trapper's life, and soon became therendezvous of all the adventurous men from the banks of the river Platteto the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
Since Boone had settled in his present abode, he had had a hand-to-handfight with a black bear, in the very room where we were sitting. When hehad built his log cabin, it was with the intention of taking to himselfa wife. At that time he courted the daughter of one of the old Arkansassettlers, and he wished to have "a place and a crop on foot" before hemarried. The girl was killed by the fall of a tree, and Boone, in hissorrow, sent away the men whom he had hired to help him in "turning hisfield," for he wished to be alone.
Months elapsed, and his crop of corn promised an abundant harvest; buthe cared not. He would take his rifle and remain sometimes for a monthin the woods, brooding over his loss. The season was far advanced, when,one day returning home, he perceived that the bears, the squirrels, andthe deer had made rather free with the golden ears of his corn. Theremainder he resolved to save for the use of his horse, and as hewished to begin harvest next morning, he slept that night in the cabin,on his solitary pallet. The heat was intense, and, as usual in thesecountries during summer, he had left his door wide open.
It was about midnight, when he heard something tumbling in the room; herose in a moment, and, hearing a short and heavy breathing, he asked whoit was, for the darkness was such, that he could not see two yardsbefore him. No answer being given, except a kind of half-smotheredgrunt, he advanced, and, putting out his hand, he seized the shaggy coatof a bear. Surprise rendered him motionless, and the animal giving him ablow in the chest with his terrible paw, threw him down outside thedoor. Boone could have escaped, but, maddened with the pain of his fall,he only thought of vengeance, and, seizing his knife and tomahawk, whichwere fortunately within his reach, he darted furiously at the beast,dealing blows at random. Great as was his strength, his tomahawk couldnot penetrate through the thick coat of the animal, which, havingencircled the body of his assailant with his paws, was pressing him inone of those deadly embraces which could only have been resisted by agiant like Boone. Fortunately, the black bear, unlike the grizzly, veryseldom uses his claws and teeth in fighting, contenting himself withsmo
thering his victim. Boone disentangled his left arm, and with hisknife dealt a furious blow upon the snout of the animal, which, smartingwith pain, released his hold. The snout is the only vulnerable part inan old black bear. Even at forty yards, the ball of a rifle will flattenagainst his skull, and if in any other part of the body, it willscarcely produce any serious effect.
Boone, aware of this, and not daring to risk another hug, darted awayfrom the cabin. The bear, now quite angry, followed and overtook himnear the fence. Fortunately the clouds were clearing away, and the moonthrew light sufficient to enable the hunter to strike with a morecertain aim: chance also favoured him; he found on the ground one of therails made of the blue ash, very heavy, and ten feet in length; hedropped his knife and tomahawk, and seizing the rail, he renewed thefight with caution, for it had now become a struggle for life or death.
Had it been a bull or a panther, they would have had their bonesshivered to pieces by the tremendous blows which Boone dealt upon hisadversary with all the strength of despair; but Bruin is by nature anadmirable fencer, and, in spite of his unwieldy shape, there is not inthe world an animal whose motions are more rapid in a close encounter.Once or twice he was knocked down by the force of the blows, butgenerally he would parry them with a wonderful agility. At last, hesucceeded in seizing the other end of the rail, and dragged it towardshim with irresistible force. Both man and beast fell, Boone rolling tothe place where he had dropped his arms, while the bear advanced uponhim; the moment was a critical one, but Boone was accustomed to look atand brave death under every shape, and with a steady hand he buried histomahawk in the snout of his enemy, and, turning round, he rushed to hiscabin, believing he would have time to secure the door. He closed thelatch, and applied his shoulders to it; but it was of no avail, theterrible brute dashed in head foremost, and tumbled in the room withBoone and the fragments of the door. The two foes rose and stared ateach other; Boone had nothing left but his knife, but Bruin wastottering and unsteady, and Boone felt that the match was more equal:once more they closed.
A few hours after sunrise, Captain Finn, returning home from theLegislature at Little Rock, called upon his friend, and, to his horror,found him apparently lifeless on the floor, and alongside of him, thebody of the bear. Boone soon recovered, and found that the lucky blowwhich had saved him from being crashed to death had buried the wholeblade of his knife, through the left eye, in the very brain of theanimal[29].
[Footnote 29: The black bear does not grow to any great size in theeastern and northern parts of America, but in Arkansas and the adjacentStates it becomes, from its size and strength, almost as formidable anantagonist as a grizzly bear. It is very common to find them eighthundred weight, but sometimes they weigh above a thousand pounds.]