The Desert Home Part 21

"It was not likely to be a difficult job. The tree, as I have said, was a hollow one; and near the ground its trunk was nothing but a mere sh.e.l.l, which we could easily cut through. So Cudjo went l.u.s.tily to work with his axe; and the white sycamore chips were soon flying in every direction.

"He had hardly made a dozen strokes, when we were startled by a singular noise, that sounded something like a 'cross' between a growl and a snort!

"Cudjo immediately suspended his blows; and we all stood gazing at each other with looks that betokened surprise and terror. I say _terror_-- for the noise had something terrible in it; and we knew it could have proceeded from nothing else than some large and fierce animal. Whence did it come?--from the woods? We looked anxiously around us, but no motion could be observed in the bramble. The underwood was thin, and we could have seen a large animal at some distance, had such been there.

"Again the horrid sound echoed in our ears. It appeared to issue out of the earth! No--_it came out of the tree_!

"'Golly!' exclaimed Cudjo, 'it am a bar, Ma.s.sa Roff! I know him growl.'

"'A bear!' I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, catching the thought at the same moment. 'A bear in the bee-tree! Run, Mary! Run for the glade!'--and I hurried my wife and children from the spot. Harry and Frank both wished to remain with their rifles, and I could hardly get them off. I induced them to go, at length, by telling them that they must stay near their mother and the little ones, to guard them in case the animal should come that way.

All this occupied but a few seconds of time, and then Cudjo and I were left to ourselves.

"It was evident that a bear was up the hollow of the tree, and hence the flurry among the bees. Cudjo's axe had disturbed him--he was coming down!

"What was to be done? Could we not close up the hole? No--there was nothing--we should be too late!

"I seized my rifle, while Cudjo stood by with his axe. I c.o.c.ked the piece, and made ready to fire the moment his head should appear. To our astonishment, instead of a head, a shapeless ma.s.s of s.h.a.ggy, black hair made its appearance, which we saw was the rump and hind-quarters of the animal. He was coming down tail-foremost--although not a bit of tail was to be seen, for he had none.

"We did not stop to examine that. I fired as soon as his hips made their appearance, and almost at the same instant Cudjo dealt them a hearty blow with his axe. It was enough to have killed him, as we thought, but to our surprise the hind-quarters suddenly disappeared. He had gone up the tree again.

"What next?--would he turn himself in the hollow, and come down head-foremost? If so, my rifle was empty, and Cudjo might miss his blow, and let him pa.s.s out.

"All at once my eye fell upon the two great deerskin coats, that were lying on the ground close by. They would be large enough, properly rolled, to fill the mouth of the cavity. I threw aside my rifle, and laid hold of them. Cudjo a.s.sisted me. In a second or two, we had gathered them into a hard 'clump,' and wedged them into the hole. They fitted it exactly!

"We saw blood streaming down as we stuffed in the coats. The bear was wounded. It was not likely, then, that he would trouble us for a while; and as one watched the coats, the other brought up great stones, which we piled against them, until we had made all secure.

"We now ran around the tree, looking up the trunk, to a.s.sure ourselves that there was no opening above, through which he might creep out and come down upon us. No--there was none, except the bee-hole, and that was not big enough for his nose, sharp as it was. Bruin was fairly 'in the trap.'

"I knew that Mary and the rest would be uneasy about us; and I ran out to the glade to make known our success. The boys cheered loudly; and we all returned together to the tree, as there was now no danger--no more than if there hadn't been a bear nearer to us than the North Pole.

"We had him safe, so that there was no fear of his escaping. But how were we to get at him?--for we had determined to take his life. Such a fierce creature as this must not be allowed to get off; as he would soon have settled with one of us, had he met us on anything like equal terms.

I had thought, at first, he might be a grizzly bear, and this had terrified me the more--for the killing of one of these fierce animals with a shot is next to an impossibility. When I reflected, however, I knew it could not be this; for the 'grizzly,' unlike his sable cousin, is not a tree-climber. It was the black bear, then, that we had got in the tree.

"But how were we to reach him? Leave him where he was, and let him starve to death? No, that would never do. He would eat all the fine stock of honey; if, indeed, he had not done so already. Moreover, he might sc.r.a.pe his way out, by enlarging the bee-hole. This he could do with his great sharp claws. We must therefore adopt some other plan.

"It occurred to us that it was just probable he might be down at the bottom, poking his nose against the coats. We could not tell, for there was no longer any growling. He was either too angry, or too badly scared to growl--we could not say which. At all events, he was not uttering a sound. He might, nevertheless, be as close to us at the moment as he could get. If so, our plan would be to cut a small hole in the tree above him, so that we might reach him with a bullet from the rifle. This plan was adopted, and Cudjo set to work to make the hole.

"In a few minutes the thin sh.e.l.l was penetrated, and we could see into the cavity. Bruin was nowhere visible--he was still up the tree. The 'taste of our quality,' which he had had on his first descent, had evidently robbed him of all inclination to try a second. What next?

"'Smoke 'im!' cried Cudjo; 'dat fotch 'im down.'

"The very thing: but how were we to do it? By pus.h.i.+ng dead leaves and gra.s.s through the hole Cudjo had cut, and then setting them on fire.

But our coats--they might be burned! These we could first remove, putting great stones in their place; and we proceeded to do so. In a few minutes that was accomplished: the gra.s.s and leaves were staffed in; some tufts were set on fire and thrust through; more rubbish was piled on top, until it reached up on a level with the hole; and then the hole was closed with a bundle of gra.s.s, so as to prevent the smoke from escaping.

"In a few moments we saw that everything was progressing as we had intended it. A blue rope of smoke came oozing out of the bee-hole, and the terrified bees swarmed out in cl.u.s.ters. We had not thought of this before, else we might have saved ourselves the trouble of making the gloves and masks.

"Bruin soon began to give tongue. We could hear him high up the tree snarling and growling fiercely. Every now and then he uttered a loud snort, that sounded like an asthmatic cough. After a while his growls changed into a whine, then a hideous moan, and then the sounds ceased altogether. The next moment we heard a dull concussion, as of a heavy body falling to the earth. We knew it was the bear, as he tumbled from his perch.

"We waited for some minutes. There was no longer any stir--no sound issued from the tree. We removed the gra.s.s from the upper hole. A thick volume of smoke rolled out. The bear must be dead. No creature could live in such an atmosphere. I introduced my ramrod through the opening. I could feel the soft hairy body of the animal, but it was limber and motionless. It was dead. Feeling convinced of this, at length, we removed the rocks below, and dragged it forth. Yes, the bear was dead,--or, at all events, very like it; but, to make the thing sure, Cudjo gave him a knock on the head with his axe. His long, s.h.a.ggy hair was literally filled with dead and dying bees, that, like himself, had been suffocated with the smoke, and had fallen from their combs.

"We had hardly settled the question of the bear, when our attention was called to another circ.u.mstance, which was likely to trouble us. We perceived that the tree was on fire. The decayed heart-wood that lined the cavity inside had caught fire from the blazing gra.s.s, and was now crackling away like fury. Our honey would be lost!

"This was a grievous _finale_, after all--in short, a complete disappointment to our hopes, for we had calculated on having honey on our table at supper.

"What could we do to save it? But one thing, that was evident:--cut down the tree as quickly as possible, and then cut it through again between the fire and the bees' nest.

"Should we have time for all this? The fire was already high up; and the draught, since we had opened the holes below, whizzed up the cavity as through a funnel.

"Seeing this, we closed them again; and Cudjo went to work with his axe, cutting all around the tree. And the way he did ply that axe! he seemed to have a wager against time. It was beautiful to see the style in which the chips flew!

"At length the tree began to crack, and we all stood out from it, except Cudjo, who understood which way it would fall, and was not afraid of being crushed. Not he! for Cudjo could 'lay' a tree wherever it was wanted to the breadth of a hair.

"'Cr-r-r-ack!--cr-r-r-r-as.h.!.+' said the great sycamore, and down it came, s.h.i.+vering its branches into an hundred sticks as it fell.

"It had scarcely touched the ground, when we saw Cudjo attack it at another point with his axe, as though it were some great monster, and he trying to cut off its head.

"In a few minutes more he had laid open the cavity, close to the combs; and, to our great satisfaction, we saw that the fire had not yet reached them. They were well smoked, however, and completely deserted by the bees; so that we used neither our masks nor gloves in gathering the honey. Bruin had been before us, but he had not been long at his meal when we intruded upon him, as only one or two of the combs were missing.

Enough was left. It was evidently a very old hive, and there was honey enough to fill all the vessels we had brought with us.

"We bundled the bear into the cart--as his hams and skin were worth the trouble--and leaving the old sycamore to burn out, we turned our faces homeward."

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

THE BATTLE OF THE BUCKS.

"The main object we had in view was not yet accomplished. With the exception of our flock of turkeys, none of the pets we had tamed could contribute to our support. We wished to capture some of the deer species, and for this purpose we had thought of various expedients. We had seen the fawns once or twice following their mothers; but we had failed in coming up with them, although we had made several hunting excursions for that purpose. At length, however, instead of a fawn, we very unexpectedly captured a couple of old bucks, of the red-deer species. The circ.u.mstances of this capture were somewhat singular; and I shall detail them minutely as they occurred.

"We had gone out one day, Harry and myself, in search of the deer, and in hopes that we might be able to start, run down a fawn with the dogs, and take it alive. For this we had muzzled both, so that they should not tear the fawn when they came up with it--as I had often seen greyhounds muzzled at home for the same purpose. We went up the valley, where we should be most likely to fall in with the objects of our search; but not knowing how soon a deer might start out of the bushes, we walked along very silently and slowly, watching the woods before us, and listening to every sound. At length we arrived near the edge of a small opening, as we could tell by the clear breaks through the branches. It was in these glades or openings that we usually fell in with the deer; and we advanced with increased caution, each of us holding a dog in the leash which we had made for them. All at once a singular noise reached our ears, evidently coming from the glade. It sounded as if several large animals were stamping furiously over the firm turf; but in the midst of this there was a constant cracking of some hard substances, as if half-a-dozen men were playing with eagerness at the game of single-stick. Every now and then we could hear a strange sound, short and fierce, like the snorting of a horse. Of course, Harry and I stopped in our tracks the moment we first heard these singular noises. Our dogs c.o.c.ked their ears, and wanted to spring forward; but we held them both tightly on their strings, while we listened. For the life of us, neither I nor my companion could guess what was going on in the glade.

"'What can it be, papa?' said Harry.

"'I haven't the slightest idea,' replied I.

"'It must be animals,' said he, 'and a good many of them, too, to make so much stamping. Papa, is not that the snort of a deer? I think I have heard deer make just such a noise.'

"'Maybe it is. Perhaps it may be elk; but what can cause such a commotion among them, I wonder?'

"'What think you,' suggested Harry, 'if they are fighting with some animal--a panther, or perhaps a bear?'

"'If so,' said I, 'our best plan would be to get back the road we came, and that as speedily as possible. But I do not think it is that. They would not stand to fight such creatures. Both elk and deer trust to their heels rather than horns to escape from bears and panthers. No, it is not that; but let us creep forward, and see what it is, anyhow. Hold fast to your dog. Come!'

"We crouched forward with the utmost caution, taking care not to tread upon the dry leaves and dead branches that lay across our track. We saw before us a thicket of pawpaws; and we made towards this--knowing that the broad green leaves of these bushes would screen us. We were soon among them; and a few paces farther through the thicket brought us in full view of the glade. There we saw what had caused all the strange noises, and which still continued as loud as ever.

"In the middle of the glade there were six red-deer. They were all bucks, as we could easily tell from their great branching antlers. They were engaged in fierce and terrible conflict--sometimes two and two, and sometimes three or four of them, clumped together in a sort of general _melee_. Then they would separate again; and going some distance apart, would wheel suddenly about, and rush at each other with furious snorts-- first striking forward with their forefeet held close together, and then goring one another with their sharp horns, until we could see the skin torn open, and the hair flying from them in tufts. Their eyes were flas.h.i.+ng like fire, and their whole actions betokened that the animals were filled with rage and fury.

"I saw at once what all this meant. It was now the rutting season; and these chivalrous bucks were engaged in desperate combat about some fair doe, as is their yearly habit.