Mountain Storms Read Online Free Page B

could contain himself that long!
    Coming onto the clearing again, he was shocked by the sight of the open entrance to the cave. He hurried in, but all was as he had left it. No prowling beast had taken advantage of his negligence to rob him of his store of food. He broiled the grouse and ate, and afterward he set about blocking the entrance to the cave.
    It was not hard to do. There was a profusion of big rocks around the opening, and these he rolled into the entrance, walling it up solidly. Half a dozen stones in the center were of a size that he could easily handle, and these could be moved and removed when he returned to camp at the end of a day’s hunting, or left it in the morning.
    By the time this was accomplished, he was tired, but here remained many a stretch of territory that must be explored. So he sallied out with axe and revolver once more and took the opposite direction, going up the slope toward the higher mountain.
    There was far less likelihood of men straying through this region, and therefore he made his blazes fewer and farther between. In time he came out on an open place littered with the rocks of a recent small landslide that had scraped down the hillside beyond and sent a wash of boulders and small rocks across this comparative level. The sight caused Tommy to pause with concern, and he looked back down the slope in the direction of his camp. Suppose such a slide as this one should start and continue with greater volume down the hill— might he not be buried in his cave?
    But he remembered a favorite saying of John Parks: “A man has to take chances of one kind or another.” And he turned to continue on his way. As he did so, however, his eye caught a motion among the rocks. He stopped short again, thrilling with fear. Just what had moved, he could not tell. He had a general impression, a chance-caught glimpse, rather than a definite picture. He jerked out the revolver. It was far too heavy for him, so he dropped down on one knee and supported the gun on the other. When in danger of wild beasts, he had learned long before, one must stand one’s ground, no matter with what fear. Man has no speed of foot, no escape, and flight simply invites pursuit.
    But his heart was hammering at the base of his throat, filling his whole body with trembling, when he saw it again—a bit of fur stirring behind a rock—the gleam of bright eyes. Suddenly the whole head of a little bear cub no bigger than a rabbit popped into view, surveyed him intently for an instant, and disappeared again.
    There is nothing more intriguing than a newborn cub, but Tommy felt no pleasure. A youngster of that age must be close to its mother, and mother grizzlies are apt to be incarnate fiends if they think that their offspring are in danger. Where was she now? He recalled a score of stories about the almost human intelligence of grizzlies, how they hide their trails when they are hunted, how they have been known to double back, more than once, and hunt the hunter.
    Perhaps this old vixen was engaged in that occupation even now. Perhaps she was shielding herself behind one of the boulders just to his rear, creeping up silently—very silently—in spite of all her bulk. It seemed to Tommy that the air was suddenly rank with the odor of bear. He jerked his head around with a low gasp and stared behind him. He could see nothing, but at the same time, as though she had seen his fear and decided to lurk no longer, the great battle roar of a grizzly flooded around him, deafened him, seemed to pour out of the very ground on which he stood.
    He leaped to his feet. He would have fled, if he could, but now he could not stir a muscle. Still that shambling, monstrous form that he expected did not come. The hollow echoes of the roar died off down the hillside, shattering to silence among the more distant trees. What did it mean? He could not flee, because he might run into the jaws of the great brute or within striking