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Page 57
"They ain't no stoppin' that man. He ain't afraid of nothin'. Last fall,
before the freeze-up, him an' me was headin' for camp about twilight. I
was clean shot out--ptarmigan--an' he had one cartridge left. An' the
dawgs tree'd a she grizzly. Small one. Only weighed about three hundred,
but you know what grizzlies is. 'Don't do it,' says I, when he ups with
his rifle. 'You only got that one shot, an' it's too dark to see the
sights.'
"'Climb a tree,' says he. I didn't climb no tree, but when that bear
come down a-cussin' among the dawgs, an' only creased, I want to tell
you I was sure hankerin' for a tree. It was some ruction. Then things
come on real bad. The bear slid down a hollow against a big log.
Downside, that log was four feet up an' down. Dawgs couldn't get at bear
that way. Upside was steep gravel, an' the dawgs'd just naturally slide
down into the bear. They was no jumpin' back, an' the bear was
a-manglin' 'em fast as they come. All underbrush, gettin' pretty dark,
no cartridges, nothin'.
"What's Rocky up an' do? He goes downside of log, reaches over with his
knife, an' begins slashin'. But he can only reach bear's rump, an' dawgs
bein' ruined fast, one-two-three time. Rocky gets desperate. He don't
like to lose his dawgs. He jumps on top log, grabs bear by the slack of
the rump, an' heaves over back'ard right over top of that log. Down they
go, kit an' kaboodle, twenty feet, bear, dawgs, an' Rocky, slidin',
cussin', an' scratchin', ker-plump into ten feet of water in the bed of
stream. They all swum out different ways. Nope, he didn't get the bear,
but he saved the dawgs. That's Rocky. They's no stoppin' him when his
mind's set."
It was at the next camp that Linday heard how Rocky had come to be
injured.
"I'd ben up the draw, about a mile from the cabin, lookin' for a piece
of birch likely enough for an axe-handle. Comin' back I heard the
darndest goings-on where we had a bear trap set. Some trapper had left
the trap in an old cache an' Rocky'd fixed it up. But the goings-on. It
was Rocky an' his brother Harry. First I'd hear one yell and laugh, an'
then the other, like it was some game. An' what do you think the fool
game was? I've saw some pretty nervy cusses down in Curry County, but
they beat all. They'd got a whoppin' big panther in the trap an' was
takin' turns rappin' it on the nose with a light stick. But that wa'n't
the point. I just come out of the brush in time to see Harry rap it.
Then he chops six inches off the stick an' passes it to Rocky. You see,
that stick was growin' shorter all the time. It ain't as easy as you
think. The panther'd slack back an' hunch down an' spit, an' it was
mighty lively in duckin' the stick. An' you never knowed when it'd jump.
It was caught by the hind leg, which was curious, too, an' it had some
slack I'm tellin' you.
"It was just a game of dare they was playin', an' the stick gettin'
shorter an' shorter an' the panther madder 'n madder. Bimeby they wa'n't
no stick left--only a nubbin, about four inches long, an' it was Rocky's
turn. 'Better quit now,' says Harry. 'What for?' says Rocky. 'Because if
you rap him again they won't be no stick left for me,' Harry answers.
'Then you'll quit an' I win,' says Rocky with a laugh, an' goes to it.
"An' I don't want to see anything like it again. That cat'd bunched back
an' down till it had all of six feet slack in its body. An' Rocky's
stick four inches long. The cat got him. You couldn't see one from
t'other. No chance to shoot. It was Harry, in the end, that got his
knife into the panther's jugular."
"If I'd known how he got it I'd never have come," was Linday's comment.
Daw nodded concurrence.
"That's what she said. She told me sure not to whisper how it
happened."
"Is he crazy?" Linday demanded in his wrath.
"They're all crazy. Him an' his brother are all the time devilin' each
other to tom-fool things. I seen them swim the riffle last fall, bad
water an' mush-ice runnin'--on a dare. They ain't nothin' they won't
tackle. An' she's 'most as bad. Not afraid some herself. She'll do
anything Rocky'll let her. But he's almighty careful with her. Treats
her like a queen. No camp-work or such for her. That's why another man
an' me are hired on good wages. They've got slathers of money an'
they're sure dippy on each other. 'Looks like good huntin',' says Rocky,
when they struck that section last fall. 'Let's make a camp then,' says
Harry. An' me all the time thinkin' they was lookin' for gold. Ain't ben
a prospect pan washed the whole winter."
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