Chapter VIII.
The Death of Old Double Killer
I was right: I could hear the prowler’s breathing as well as his soft footsteps. He was almost to the head of my bunk, and, oh, how I wanted to spring out of it and run for the shelter of the spruces, there where our Hopi was. I gritted my teeth together and held my breath; my eyelids were trembling so that I had to close them for an instant, and when I slightly opened them, there, not three feet from my head and considerably higher from the ground, was the head of a monster bear. It was turned toward me; the mean little eyes were staring right into my face and the wet, black snout was all wiggly, sniffing the air, and I knew at once that old Double Killer himself was staring at me, for no other bear’s head could be as large as that. The talk of our mountain hunters flashed through my mind, and I knew that I must not risk a shot at him; that my one chance to live was to lie perfectly still. And maybe that was n’t hard to do! Then slowly the head turned from me, moved forward, and the whole body of the bear came into view, a body as big as that of a steer, and covered with heavy, dark, silver-tipped fur, except that along the back still clung to the new growth some ragged patches of the winter coat. As the bear moved forward his fur, his whole hide heaved and rippled at every step. It was queer that in my terrible fear of him I should notice that. But he made only three or four steps, and paused, half turned and again stared at me, and I thought that now my end was surely come, that he was about to spring upon me.
“Anyhow, I ’ll die fighting,” I said to myself, and now gone a bit crazy, I guess, was just on the point of springing up and firing at him, when he suddenly threw up his head, made a quick whirl, and looked the other way. And then I saw what he did, the young Hopi stepping lightly toward us, with that old-time bow, arrow fitted, and half raised. I could hardly believe my eyes. If I had no chance against the bear with my rifle, what chance had he with his old bow and stone-tipped arrows?
My eyes were wide open now as I stared at him and tried to plan what I should do. I glanced at the bear and saw that the hair above his shoulders was stiffly bristling forward, like that of an angry dog. And then I looked back at the Indian and saw him stop short, raise his bow and let fly at the bear, and turn and run for the timber from whence he had come. With a roar louder and madder than the bellow of a mad bull, the bear took after him, for the arrow had stung into him. I had distinctly heard its plunk.
Inside the cabin Hannah was now crying:“George! George! Where are you? What’s the trouble?”
“Quick! Open the door!” I shouted to her as I sprang from my bunk, and ran to the edge of the porch. By that time the Hopi was almost to the edge of the timber, and the bear was gaining upon him with wonderful long and quick leaps, but still all of forty yards behind. I raised my rifle and fired at the bear; and again; and a third time with more careful aim, and hit. With another awful roar that old bear suddenly squatted and twisted back and bit his rump where the bullet had struck into it, and I fired again at the dark mass of him, for at that distance and in the moonlight I could do no better. Well, what happened then was sure a surprise to me: with the crack of the rifle that bear just flopped straight out upon the ground and with never a roar, nor a grunt, even, jerked his legs a few times and lay still.
For a moment or two I just stood there and stared; somehow I could n’t think straight. It was Hannah who brought me to my senses.
‘‘Why, George! You have killed him! ” she cried.
I had not heard her open the door, but there she was, wrapped in a big blanket, standing on the porch close beside me. “Why, I believe that I have killed him. And, oh, Hannah! He is old Double Killer!” I told her.
“You must be mistaken; it can’t be him!” she said.
I did not answer, for just then we heard strange singing; strange words to a queer, happy-sounding tune. It was our Hopi friend, singing and dancing from the spruces out to the bear. We ran across the clearing and joined him beside the body of the great beast. Paying no attention to us, he kept on singing for a moment or two, and then said: ‘‘I could not help it. I just had to sing that, our song of thanks to the gods for dangers safely passed.”
“Danger! I should say that you were in danger! Why did you come running out toward this great bear with just your bow and arrows?” I cried.
“Why, to save you! To get the bear away from your bunk. I thought that he was going to spring upon you. I was safe enough. I knew that I could get back here and up into one of these trees before he could overtake me,” he answered, as calmly as though what he had done was an every-day occurrence.
“Don’t think that I was asleep,” he went on. “The bear surely came from the west straight to the cabin, or I should have seen him when he entered the clearing. And did you notice: my unfeathered arrow struck him! Did n’t he roar! Let us see where the point went in.”
We found the point and a couple of inches of the broken shaft in the bear’s right shoulder, and saw that my last bullet had struck into the brain close in front of the base of the right ear. I stepped the length of the carcass and found that it was a little more than nine feet. Then with my hands I measured one of the hind paws: It is all of fourteen and a half inches!” I said. ‘‘There can be no doubt about it: this is old Double Killer, and no other!”
“Yes! And just think with that one last shot you earned two hundred dollars!” cried Hannah.
“How is that? The hide can’t be worth more than fifty dollars,” said the Hopi.
She told him about the reward offered by the cattlemen for the death of Double Killer, and why the bear had been so named. He turned to me: “How nice for you; that is a lot of money,” he said.
“Nice for the three of us; we each make about eighty dollars,” I answered; and how they smiled.
‘‘I need the money!’’ Hannah exclaimed.
‘‘Eighty dollars will go a long way toward paying the expense of my trip to Washington,” said our friend.
In our excitement we had forgotten all about our two-legged enemies, but now Hannah said that we were running no little risk, standing there in the open. We agreed that there was no help for it. The bear had to be skinned, and at once, or the hide would spoil.
Said the Hopi then: “I was tainted when I moved the Apache bones and the gun out of the kiva entrance. I cannot be worse tainted now by handling other whites’ things. Give me one of your knives and we’ll soon have this hide off.”
Hannah brought the knives from the cabin and we fell to work, she standing by and keeping a sharp watch on all parts of the clearing. We took great care not to cut the hide by a slip of our knives, and were a long time working at the head, and skinning the feet down to the long toe nails, which we took off with the hide. Day was breaking when we had it free from the carcass. It was so large and heavy that I could not lift it alone. We spread it out upon the ground, flesh side up, and admired its great length and breadth. And then our friend said that we were to leave the stretching and drying of it to him. We folded it, rolled it up, and Hannah brought soap, and we went to the spring and washed in the outlet. Refusing to eat with us, the Hopi then hurried off up top to wait upon his old men.
At eight o’clock, when Hannah and I got up to the lookout, we saw at once that the big fire had made considerable headway during the night.