Part 10

"Santa Maria!" came a cry of death, and hovering riders dashed to draw the Bear away. Three horses dead, one man dead, one nearly so, and only one escaped.

"Crack! crack! crack!" went the pistols now as the Bear went rocking his huge form in rapid charge for the friendly hills; and the four riders, urged by Kellyan, followed fast. They passed him, wheeled, faced him. The pistols had wounded him in many places.

"Don't shoot--don't shoot, but tire him out," the hunter urged.

"Tire him out? Look at Carlos and Manuel back there. How many minutes will it be before the rest are down with them?" So the infuriating pistols popped till all their shots were gone, and Monarch foamed with slobbering jaws of rage.

"Keep on! keep cool," cried Kellyan.

His lariat flew as the cattle-killing paw was lifted for an instant. The lasso bound his wrist. "Sing! Sing!" went two, and caught him by the neck. A bull with his great club-foot in a noose is surely caught, but the Grizzly raised his supple, hand-like, tapering paw and gave one jerk that freed it. Now the two on his neck were tight; he could not slip them. The horses at the ends--they were dragging, choking him; men were shouting, hovering, watching for a new chance, when Monarch, firmly planting both paws, braced, bent those mighty shoulders, and, spite of shortening breath, leaned back on those two ropes as Samson did on pillars of the house of Baal, and straining horses with their riders were dragged forward more and more, long grooves being plowed behind; dragging them, he backed faster and faster still. His eyes were starting, his tongue lolling out.

"Keep on! hold tight!" was the cry, till the ropers swung together, the better to resist; and Monarch, big and strong with frenzied hate, seeing now his turn, sprang forward like a shot. The horses leaped and escaped--almost; the last was one small inch too slow. The awful paw with jags of steel just grazed his flank. How slight it sounds! But what it really means is better not writ down.

The riders had slipped their ropes in fear, and the Monarch, rumbling, snorting, bounding, trailed them to the hills, there to bite them off in peace, while the remnant of the gallant crew went, sadly muttering, back.

Bitter words went round. Kellyan was cursed.

"His fault. Why didn't we have the guns?"

"We were all in it," was the answer, and more hard words, till Kellyan flushed, forgot his calm, and drew a pistol hitherto concealed, and the other "took it back."

XV. THE FOAMING FLOOD

"What is next, Lan?" said Lou, as they sat dispirited by the fire that night.

Kellyan was silent for a time, then said slowly and earnestly, with a gleam in his eye: "Lou, that's the greatest Bear alive. When I seen him set up there like a butte and swat horses like they was flies, I jest loved him. He's the greatest thing God has turned loose in these yer hills. Before to-day, I sure wanted to get him; now, Lou, I'm a-going to get him, an' get him alive, if it takes all my natural days. I think I kin do it alone, but I know I kin do it with you," and deep in Kellyan's eyes there glowed a little spark of something not yet rightly named.

They were camped in the hills, being no longer welcome at the ranch; the ranchers thought their price too high. Some even decided that the Monarch, being a terror to sheep, was not an undesirable neighbor. The cattle bounty was withdrawn, but the newspaper bounty was not.

"I want you to bring in that Bear," was the brief but pregnant message from the rich newsman when he heard of the fight with the riders.

"How are you going about it, Lan?"

Every bridge has its rotten plank, every fence its flimsy rail, every great one his weakness, and Kellyan, as he pondered, knew how mad it was to meet this one of brawn with mere brute force.

"Steel traps are no good; he smashes them. Lariats won't do, and he knows all about log traps. But I have a scheme. First, we must follow him up and learn his range. I reckon that'll take three months."

So the two kept on. They took up that Bear-trail next day; they found the lariats chewed off. They followed day after day. They learned what they could from rancher and sheepherder, and much more was told them than they could believe.

Three months, Lan said, but it took six months to carry out his plan; meanwhile Monarch killed and killed.

In each section of his range they made one or two cage- or pen-traps of bolted logs. At the back end of each they put a small grating of heavy steel bars. The door was carefully made and fitted into grooves. It was of double plank, with tar-paper between to make it surely light-tight. It was sheeted with iron on the inside, and when it dropped it went into an iron-bound groove in the floor.

They left these traps open and unset till they were grayed with age and smelt no more of man. Then the two hunters prepared for the final play. They baited all without setting them--baited them with honey, the lure that Monarch never had refused--and when at length they found the honey baits were gone, they came where he now was taking toll and laid the long-planned snare. Every trap was set, and baited as before with a mass of honey--but honey now mixed with a potent sleeping draft.

XVI. LANDLOCKED

That night the great Bear left his lair, one of his many lairs, and, cured of all his wounds, rejoicing in the fullness of his mighty strength, he strode toward the plains. His nose, ever alert, reported--sheep, a deer, a grouse; men--more sheep, some cows, and some calves; a bull--a fighting bull--and Monarch wheeled in big, rude, Bearish joy at the coming battle brunt; but as he hugely hulked from hill to hill a different message came, so soft and low, so different from the smell of beefish brutes, one might well wonder he could sense it, but like a tiny ringing bell when thunder booms it came, and Monarch wheeled at once. Oh, it cast a potent spell! It stood for something very near to ecstasy with him, and down the hill and through the pines he went, on and on faster yet, abandoned to its sorcery. Here to its home he traced it, a long, low cavern. He had seen such many times before, had been held in them more than once, but had learned to spurn them. For weeks he had been robbing them of their treasures, and its odor, like a calling voice, was still his guide. Into the cavern he passed and it reeked with the smell of joy. There was the luscious mass, and Monarch, with all caution lulled now, licked and licked, then seized to tear the bag for more, when down went the door with a low "bang!" The Monarch started, but all was still and there was no smell of danger. He had forced such doors before. His palate craved the honey still, and he licked and licked, greedily at first, then calmly, then slowly, then drowsily--then at last stopped. His eyes were closing, and he sank slowly down on the earth and slept a heavy sleep.

Calm, but white-faced, were they--the men--when in the dawn they came. There were the huge scarred tracks in-leading; there was the door down; there dimly they could see a mass of fur that filled the pen, that heaved in deepest sleep.

Strong ropes, strong chains and bands of steel were at hand, with chloroform, lest he should revive too soon. Through holes in the roof with infinite toil they chained him, bound him--his paws to his neck, his neck and breast and hind legs to a bolted beam. Then raising the door, they dragged him out, not with horses--none would go near--but with a windlass to a tree; and fearing the sleep of death, they let him now revive.

Chained and double chained, frenzied, foaming, and impotent, what words can tell the state of the fallen Monarch? They put him on a sled, and six horses with a long chain drew it by stages to the plain, to the railway. They fed him enough to save his life. A great steam-derrick lifted Bear and beam and chain on to a flat-car, a tarpaulin was spread above his helpless form; the engine puffed, pulled out; and the Grizzly King was gone from his ancient hills.