Читать книгу Mountain Storms - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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He made wonderfully good progress with the hammer. The axe had been a clumsy tool for the work of the day before, but the shorter handle of the hammer gave Tommy a better chance. It was a heavy tool, to be sure, and, although he stood with braced legs and swung the hammer with a regular rhythm, yet his shoulders and back were aching before he had been at it long. But the rock was falling away in great and greater flakes. And now the entrance hole was perceptibly widened.

When he retired to scrape away the fragments, the mother bear came again to the opening, and now all of her broad head could pass through. She whined up to Tommy with understanding as he approached again.

When he sat down at the entrance and held out his hand, she did not at once cuff Jack away as the curious little cub started slowly to investigate the meaning of that inviting hand.

She allowed him, the first time, to come within a few inches of the hand, sniffing eagerly, before she knocked him away with a growl that warned him to stay out of danger and let well enough alone. But when Tommy persisted in staying there, she merely pricked her ears the second time and watched without interference.

For curiosity in a bear is almost as great as its fear of death. The strange sight of a forest fire had once held her fascinated until a far-flung arm of the conflagration cut in behind her and nearly blocked her retreat. She had retired with a scorched back and a deeper respect for the great red enemy, but forest fires remained as interesting as ever to her. Now, much as she dreaded the small human in the mouth of the cave, she was devoured with insatiable curiosity as to what he would do if his hand touched her cub again. Once before she had seen Jack handled, and yet he had come back to her, rank with the taint of man, to be sure, but safe and sound in body and limb. Might it not happen again?

It did happen. Little Jack came to the fingertips, sniffed them, ventured closer, shrank from the hand that attempted to caress him, and then came back and allowed the fingers to rub his head. He went farther out. With a faint growl of anxiety, she saw him taken up. But then there happened what had happened before. He was soothed by a gentle voice. He was stroked and rubbed to his heart’s content. Even when those sharp little teeth of his closed on the hand of the boy, even though that bite brought a small drop of crimson to the surface of the skin, he went unpunished. The bruin was too amazed for thought. But she was delighted until her flanks quivered with the sensation. What could be a greater joy to her than to drink in these great draughts of knowledge?

To be sure, when Jerry attempted to follow Jack, she decided that one risk was enough at a time, and he was warned back, cowering, by a terrific snarl. But when Jack was returned to her a moment later, her examination of him was most cursory. At a glance, at a sniff, she knew that all was well with him still.

The work at widening the hole continued now, and Tommy made the chips of rock fly. But when the afternoon grew late and the spring sun sloped into the far west, he threw down the hammer with a great sigh and rubbed his aching shoulders as he contemplated what still remained to be done. It meant days and days of this labor—and his hands were already blistered with what he had done.

Yet what a wonderful thing it was, thought Tommy as he started home that evening, that it could be within the power of his small hands not only to support his own life in the wilderness, but to save the lives of three other creatures? And the sense of labor accomplished and other labor to be done toward the good end filled him with a solid self-respect that was new to him. He felt these things; reason was not yet developed in him to the extent of allowing him to be mentally conscious of them.

Once more he was too tired to keep his eyes open for long after he had eaten his supper, but, as his eyes closed in profound slumber, a new thought came to him. In the morning he would take all that he needed with him, block the mouth of his big cave with more and heavier rocks, and move to stay by the bear cave until the work of liberation was completed.

That promise to himself he kept when the dawn wakened him. How little he needed. Salt, a little flour, matches, and the rifle, the hammer, and a blanket tied up in the tarpaulin—that was all. As for the other food he required, his fishing line would get it for him, and he could supplement that excellent fare by knocking over one of the stupid mountain grouse now and again.

Few as the articles were, they made a heavy pack for the legs of a twelve-year-old, and he was panting before he reached the bear cave after his breakfast. It seemed that his particular scent was now well known, for there was no thunderous roar to greet him—only a deep, anxious growl. And the little cubs, playing as usual in the clearing among the stones, retreated only to the mouth of the cave and there stood up on their hind legs, as bears do, to observe him, until they were dragged inside by the paw of the bruin.

But even this anxiety left her later on. She permitted Jack to steal out, during one of Tommy’s resting periods, while he sat down, always taking care to be in view of the mother bear so that she could see all that happened. For his great care was to reconcile her to him. As for the cubs, a thousand other persons had tamed young bears, but how often had grown grizzlies been made into safe companions? So much the greater triumph if he eventually should succeed! If a boy of twelve could succeed, surely that would be a proof that kindness is a greater weapon than the rifle. He had heard his father say that, but at the time he had not been able to understand.

So he lay on one elbow near the mouth of the cave while Jack stole cautiously out to him—followed by an anxious growl or two, as though to warn him that he must be on his good behavior. But Jack observed caution only for a moment. He skirmished around Tommy for a little while, and then he came straight to close quarters for a better investigation. And there followed a wonderful game!

There were so many possibilities. There were pockets filled with strange scents that might be inquired into. There was the strange-smelling leather of the shoes, which might be chewed upon. And if one climbed to the shoulder of this playmate, his head was crowned by a thatch of hair just like the hair of a bear, although not quite so rough, perhaps.

By this time Jerry had played the part of an idle spectator longer than he could endure, and he came out for his share of the fun. Where one had broken the ice already, it was not hard for a second to follow suit. In five minutes Jerry was every whit as familiar as Jack, while mother bruin contented herself with crowding her head out the opening and observing each move.

With that romp ended, the cubs stayed out to continue play of their own, while Tommy went back to his labors. At noon he went down to the brook and caught more fish, some for himself, but more for the grizzly, since she had devoured the last of those he had brought her the day before. He fed them to her, then brought up water as he had done before and actually ventured a hand inside the cave to scrape the dirt out of the hollow of the rock that served her as a drinking trough.

But the bruin merely snorted at him and came to smell the rock after he had done with it. When the water was brought, she drank, long and deep. After that, there were new mysteries into which the cubs were quickly initiated. First of all, when Tommy’s fire was lighted, they scampered, whining, back to the cave, but, after the flames had died down a bit, they were lured by the delicious odors of the roasting fish and ventured close again. They not only came close, but one at a time they sat up on their haunches and received tiny bits of the fish from the tips of Tommy’s fingers. And they relished the taste!

Where one thing was good, why might not all be harmless? Alas, that it could not prove to be so. Poor Jerry selected for his next investigation a little, red-hot wood coal and, after a bit of tentative sniffing, picked it up boldly in both forepaws.

There followed a shrill squeal of pain—a roar from mother grizzly—and a slight taint of burnt hair in the air. Tommy turned anxiously to watch the bruin. Would she feel that he had burned her young ones purposely? By no means, apparently. She simply sniffed the burned paws, and then promptly turned her head away and calmly ate another fish, as though she intended to convey that those who would not be warned must take the consequences. But that day and the next and the next, Jerry went about on his hind legs, or, if he wanted to run, he had to put all his weight upon the outside rim of his forepaws.

All those days Tommy was working like a Trojan to widen the mouth of the cave. A week passed, and he was still at it. And now he could no longer catch fish to satisfy the bruin. In the first place, it was harder to take them in the waters of the creek. In the second place, and primarily, the appetite of the bruin had grown beyond all measure. Both food and water she seemed to require in unheard-of quantities. He kept enough of the latter for her in the cave, but of the former he could not bring sufficient amounts. Tommy worked with all his might to let her out so she might forage for herself.

It was terribly slow work, however. The edge of the rock had given way rapidly enough, but now as he came to the body of it, every inch added to the gap meant many hours of hammering. There was one great advantage, at least. The blisters had dried away, healed, and now his palms were growing callused. New muscles, too, had grown out on his slender young arms, so that the labor of wielding the hammer was far easier. Probably the stalwart arms of his father, swinging a sledge, would have battered away the rock in great chunks and freed the big bear within a short time. But he, with his lesser strength, could only gnaw at the rock face little by little.

Ten days of labor passed, and now, half a dozen times a day, the bruin came to the entrance and strove to squeeze her way out, but the passage was still not big enough. She would retire and lie down to watch and wait, although sometimes, as the wind brought to her the delightful fragrance of roots and of honey from over the woods, she would raise her big head and growl with deep impatience.

In the meantime, there could be no doubt that even her brute mind understood perfectly the service that human hands were performing for her. There was not a growl when Tommy came near her. She would come close to the entrance to the cave and lie there, just out of range of the flying chips, and observe his work with keen satisfaction. He, on his side, did all that he could to push forward their acquaintance. When he came up with fish, now, she would crowd as far out as she could, her little eyes glittering with a ferocious hunger—for the appetite of a bear is the appetite of a pig—and Tommy would feed her the fish he had captured, one by one, from his hands. He ventured at first only by holding the fish by the tail and offering the head foremost. But he grew bolder day after day. His child’s mind, having seen her do no wrong, could not conceive her repaying his kindness with beast ingratitude.

So, on a day, half closing his eyes, screwing up all the courage he could summon in his shaking body, he held out a small fish on the palm of his hand—and mother bear took it away at a bite without touching the skin of his fingers! She snorted a little. That was all. Then, as he kept the trembling hand extended, she licked the last trace of the fish oil from his palm!

It was almost the greatest event in Tommy’s life. For a moment he sat back incapable of speech, his heart thundering. But a little dog-like whine of eagerness from the bruin made him continue with the feeding, and from that time on every morsel she had was taken neatly from his hand.

Then—and all was ventured timidly, slowly—he tried to stroke that battered head while she ate. It was not easily done. At first, when the shadow of the hand extended over her, she winced away with a growl, her upper lip twitching back and disclosing huge fangs that could have shorn through the flesh and bone of his arm at a single snap. But, with twitching ears and quivering snout, she reached out for the fish again and this time allowed his hand to touch her head just between the little, pointed ears.

That was another great thrill, another great forward step of conquest for Tommy. Before the next day came, she was lying contentedly at the gap to her cave with Tommy Parks seated beside her—seated in fear, to be sure—stroking her great head and rubbing the loose fur, while mother bear seemed to take a profound satisfaction in his touch. But what was her pleasure compared with the wild delight of Tommy?

There he sat with two wild grizzly cubs playing on his knees, and with the huge head of mother bear dropped to the ground beside him. There he sat playing with the cubs, again, while that great head was raised and she sniffed at his back—a chill shot up his spine—at his arms and shoulders—at his neck—and snuffed strongly on his hair.

But that was all. No harm was done. Not once was her paw raised or were her teeth bared. To be sure, he knew that she had not admitted him to her confidence as the little cubs so freely admitted him, but she took him as a friend, an unmistakable ally, but for whose providence she must have starved and died there. And that, for the time being, was enough for Tommy.