Well, on touching bottom, he felt the water among his feet, and just then remembered how it had been before. He remembered the hollow archway under the snow, and, seeing the bear above, and in the act of being precipitated on top of him, he suddenly ducked his head, and pushed himself into the tunnel. He could feel the bear falling upon him behind, and the weight of the animal’s body, as it was precipitated downwards, forced him still further under the snow-bridge.
Once in, he continued on down the stream, working both with head and arms, and clearing a space that would allow his body to pass. The soft snow was easily pressed out of the way; and, after going as far as he deemed necessary, he turned to the right, and worked his way upward to the surface.
It was while he was thus engaged that Alexis had been squaring accounts with the bear. The fierce creature had not followed Pouchskin under the snow. In all probability, his sudden “souse” into the water had astonished Bruin himself; – from that moment all his thoughts were to provide for his own safety, and, with this intention, he was endeavouring to get back to the surface of the snowdrift, when Alexis first caught sight of his snout.
At the moment that Alexis fired the final shot, or just a little after it, Pouchskin had popped up his head through the congealed crust of the snow, and elicited from Ivan those peals of laughter that had so much astonished his brother. Pouchskin, however, had not come unscathed out of the “scrimmage.” On examining the old guardsman, it was found that the bear had clawed him severely; and a piece of skin, of several inches square was peeled from his left shoulder. The flesh, too, was rather badly lacerated.
Alexis was not without some surgical skill; and, without suffering a moment to be lost, he dressed the wound in the best manner possible under the circumstances. A clean handkerchief, which Ivan chanced to have, served as a covering for the scar; and this being tied on securely, with a strip torn from the sleeve of Pouchskin’s own shirt, left the wounded guardsman in a condition to recover, as soon as it might please nature to permit. Nothing more could have been done by the most “skilful practitioner.”
Their next business was to look after the bear. On going back to the hole, and, gazing into it, the animal, as Alexis had anticipated, was quite dead; and the water, partially dammed up by the huge carcass, was flowing over it.
Ivan, who had hitherto done least of all to secure the prize, now became the most active of the three; and, leaping down upon the body of the great brute, he looped the rope around one of its hind legs, and then stood on one side to help the rest in raising it upward.
Alexis and Pouchskin commenced hauling on the other end of the rope, and the vast mass slowly ascended upward, Ivan pushing from below, and guiding it past the inequalities of the snow. It would have been a different sort of a task, to have hauled Bruin out of such a hole three months earlier in the season; that is, about the time he had lain down for his winter siesta. Then he would have turned six or seven hundred pounds upon the scales, whereas at this time he was not more than half the weight. His skin, however, was in just as good condition as if he had been fat; and it was this, and not his carcass, that our hunters cared for.
After some tough pulling, accompanied by a good deal of shouting from Ivan at the bottom of the hole, the huge carcass was dragged forth, and lay at full length along the frozen snow. It was still necessary to raise it to the branch of a tree, in order that it might be skinned in a proper manner. This however, could be easily accomplished by means of the rope.
Up to this time Pouchskin had been puzzled about the loss of his knife. Everywhere he looked for it; but it was nowhere to be found. All the surface over which he had danced with the bear was carefully examined, and the snow scraped up to the depth of several inches. There was the blood of the bear, and some of Pouchskin’s own too, but no knife! Could it have got into the water? No. Pouchskin declared that he had dropped it near the edge of the snow-bed: for this accident, as already stated, had been the cause of his retreat from the conflict.
It was only when the great carcass was being hauled up to the branch, that the lost knife made its appearance. Then, to the astonishment of the young hunters, as well as to Pouchskin himself, the knife was seen sticking in the shoulder of the bear! There it had been when the haft slipped from his hands, and there had it remained. No doubt that stab would have given the bear his death-blow; but still more fatal had been the bullet from the rifle of Alexis, which had passed through Bruin’s brain, crushing his skull like a shell!
The skinning of the animal was accomplished with great care; for the coat was one of the finest, and the boys knew with what interest it would be regarded on its arrival at the palace Grodonoff. They spared no pains, therefore, in removing it from the carcass; and after the work was finished, it was neatly folded up, tied with the rope, and placed like a knapsack on Pouchskin’s shoulders.
Of the carcass they took no heed; but leaving it to the wolves, the gluttons, or any other carnivorous creatures that might chance to stray that way, they turned back up the ravine; and, striking off on a path that led towards the tent of the Laplander, reached their smoky quarters in good time for dinner.
Chapter Fourteen.
Ringing the Bear
The bear thus killed was the true ursus arctos, or brown bear – the latter name being given to him from the colour of his fur, which, in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, is a uniform brown. The name, however, is not appropriate, since there are other brown bears belonging to very different species.
Having secured his robe, as we have seen, the next call of our hunters was to obtain a skin from the body of his black brother. They were well aware that this would not be so easy of accomplishment, from the simple fact, that the ursus niger, or “European black bear,” is one of the rarest of animals – indeed, so few of them are obtained, that out of a thousand skins of the European bear that pass through the hands of the furriers, not more than two or three will be found to be of the black variety.
It is true that they were just in the country where they would be most likely to fall in with one; for it is only in the northern zone of Europe (and Asia also) where the black ones are found. This variety is not encountered in the southern ranges of mountains in the Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians. Whether this black bear is a distinct species was not a question with them. They knew that by most naturalists he is recognised as a variety – by some a permanent one. It was therefore certainly included in the conditions of their father’s letter; and a skin must be procured coute qui coute. This done, they would have no further business in Lapland, but might proceed at once to the Pyrenees.
It was not necessary to procure skins of the grey or silver bear, nor that with the white ring round its neck – known as the ringed or collared bear. As Alexis had said, it is acknowledged by all who know the ursus arctos his native haunts, that these are mere accidental varieties. The true “collared bear” (ursus collaris) is not found in Lapland, – only in northern Asia and Kamschatka, and it is he that is known as the “Siberian bear.” The boys therefore were not “bound” by their covenant to procure these varieties; but for all that, they were gratified at going beyond the strict letter of their agreement, which good luck enabled them to do; for while scouring the country in search of the ursus niger, they chanced upon another brown bear, a female, with three cubs, one of which was brown, like the mother; the second had the white ring round its neck, and the third was as grey as a little badger! All four were taken; and the young hunters not only had the gratification of being able to send the different varieties of skins to their father’s museum, but an additional satisfaction was afforded to Alexis, the naturalist, by this grand family capture. It proved incontestably, what he already suspected, and what, moreover, the native peasants and hunters had told him, that the “silver” and “ringed” bears were identical with the ursus arctos.
Notwithstanding their joy at the capture of the old she, and her parti-coloured pets, they were yet very anxious about the black bear. They had hunted all the forests and mountains for miles around, and had even