Gustave Aimard
The Red River Half-Breed: A Tale of the Wild North-West

CHAPTER XIII
THE BEAUTIFUL PRISONER'S FRIEND

In quick, clear tones, the double playing lieutenant of the prairie pirate resumed his speech.

"A full explanation about me would lead us afar, so come to the essential point," said he. "To begin with, when you want to ask or tell me something, let Drudge know it. He is completely devoted to you."

"I know that, señor."

"And as we must look ahead, it being likely that Captain Kidd may be in a whim, or for good reasons forbid you visitors, here is a little scroll in Spanish, with what is called a Table of Second Sight Signals, used by conjurors. The questions are innocent and commonplace enough, but they stand for phrases of meaning. You can address me thus direct on the march, and not a soul can suspect we are carrying on a correspondence."

"I'll soon have that by heart, señor," she exclaimed.

"And teach this young friend the same. The captain will have his work cut out with two women leagued against him and a spy in the garrison, I promise you. Nevertheless, you must bear in mind that patience and stratagem will alone bring us success. Keep up your bearing of dislike to me, in order that nobody can guess we are secretly in tie."

"Understanding all the importance of that advice, I shall conform to it."

"Captain Kidd is sly, and at the faintest hint of our relations, it would be all over with me."

"I shall obey you in all ways, señor, and you shall be satisfied with your pupil," she said, gently, but firmly.

"One question: what is Captain Kidd's behaviour towards you?"

"So, so; his is an overbearing character of self-will, and he is insensible to sentiment; often days pass without his thinking to throw a word, good, bad or indifferent towards me; but I must honestly confess that he never forgets the respect due to my sex, age, and education. However impulsive, absurdly freakish, and even passionate he might be too, many a daughter is less ill treated than me his prisoner."

"It's a comfort to learn that there is one bright spot in that dark heart. My plans as regards him depend on the information I heap up. So tell me if you ever knew the captain before he stole you away from your boarding school at New Orleans, kept by the Misses Featherley?"

"I really cannot answer you with a certainty, señor. Still, there is now and then a tone of his voice, and even a look of his eyes (which I remarked to be very strong to require spectacles) not altogether new to me. I may be deceiving myself as to that, but I am pretty sure that he is disguised more or less."

"If he were known to you in your earliest years, where would that be?"

"Why, señor, as I speak Spanish and English as if they were born in me, having only had to acquire French at New Orleans, I have always believed what was told me, that my father was an English merchant, who married a Mexican lady, and that I lost both of them by an Indian attack."

"Who introduced you at that school, where the terms were high, I have heard say?"

"It was, indeed, a fashionable seminary. I was an orphan, true, but some near kinsman was taking care of my future."

"Who was this?"

"I never saw him, and his steward only once. I cannot even describe him, but an elder schoolmate pictured him as a middle-aged man, stout and strong, not particularly tall, stern and dark, with a shifting eye and rough skin."

"And his name?"

"This major-domo was called Mathias Corvino. One of the Miss Featherleys told me that he had become an independent gentleman, and lived in New York in great style."

"Do you suppose that in the husk of Captain Kidd could abide this same Mathias Corvino, señorita?"

"I have not the skill to say so, but when the captain is angry, I am reminded of that man."

"Your information is to the point, and has its value. Well, whatever the disguise of our friend the captain, depend upon it that in time I shall have him at bay, and he will show his real traitorous face!"

"And now, may I just put one question to you, señor?"

"Go ahead."

"You know many things," she observed, very gravely, and lapsing into English unwittingly. "Pray tell me, have I parents, have I kinsfolk?"

"Yes. A mother, no; a father, yes – if he has not passed away during a year. A brother younger than you too!"

"A brother! Oh, tell me about him."

"I am sorry to say that I am quite ignorant of the fate of your brother Lewis."

"Lewis!"

"But you must not despair, señorita. Mark this, whatever mishap your brother ran, you have been watched by at least one friend of your father's, and had the villain who abducted you from your home attempted to suppress you by murder, an avenger, if not a defender, would have appeared by your side in the New Mexican gentleman named Don Gregorio Peralta."

"I know him, the grey headed gentleman who spoke to me when the school was out on promenade. He told me he was my friend. Where is he? Pray tell me."

"The accomplices of your abductor tried to kill him to prevent Captain Kidd being followed. His wound, however, was serious without being mortal. I will warrant that, as soon as he could fork a steed, he set out on the pursuit of you."

"Oh, then you hope he will overtake us?"

"He or another will be at our side soon," answered the false lieutenant, ambiguously.

"You are not trifling with me?"

"I am not that kind of Wolverine," answered Master Corkey Joe with a forced laugh. "I say Don Gregorio, spite of his age, is on our track, because he loved your father. Your father is also afoot, and, at last accounts, hoped to enlist in his aid some mountain trappers. They are not sordid men – often have they been known to lay aside a whole season's harvest of incredible toil to rescue a man or woman of their colour from the red men, or to flock to the border when the cry of an Indian outbreak commanded all gun bearers to fill a loophole in the forts. But this troop which surrounds us is bent on a mission hostile to the first explorers of this region, and its stores of fiery spirit and ammunition are intended to be sold to the Indians, clean counter to the laws of the United States and British Dominion, and to the regulations of the fur trade companies. So Captain Kidd's organisation is doomed! And you must be saved when it is crushed."

"Have I, indeed, friends in this vast loneliness?"

"In the midst of those mountains draped in untrodden snows, in those unfathomable canyons, upon the plain and within the caverns that profoundly tunnel the glaciers, upwards of fifty brave, strong, and honest men, are invisibly repeating my call to them."

"Your calls?"

"I have been talking to them whilst we were conversing here."

"I do not understand, señor."

"On these immense wastes, the voice is insignificant, but the clear air allows the vision to travel far. Not only is there one general code of signals by fire at night and smoke by day, but the trappers, who are now independent since the ruin of the American fur companies, retain in use the alphabet they employed. Since the captain left me control of the camp, I have had the fires placed as I chose, and their position as the columns of smoke ascend has telegraphed for miles around that one of their allies – I – is here in want of assistance. Not a soul suspects it, but already I am sure some of the hunters are carefully proceeding hither and inspecting the camp. Soon I shall sally out and meet one or other of them, and the end will be arranged for."

"Oh, señor, this incredible good news fills me with joy! At last I am happy!" she exclaimed, with her eyes full of tears. "Oh, be true to me, man whom I have misjudged, and yet who evinces so much devotion! Be true to me, for if this, is a cheat, you might as well have driven a dagger through my heart!"

"Keep faith in me, señorita. I mean to save you as surely as to punish a great scoundrel! This I have sworn, or the buzzards will have a meal off my bones."

"I will rely on you, my friend," giving him her hand cordially.

"Besides," said he, "it looks as if my friends were already at work. Three of the band have been cut off already."

"Nay, sir," interrupted a third voice, "you are only half right now. Who the remover of two of them is, I can tell you: not a dweller in these parts, but a young Englishman, who has done so much out of attachment to – to my father."

It was Miss Maclan. Her sleep had been interrupted at last by the dialogue, and, sitting up, she had listened for a few minutes before she presumed it meet to interpose.

In well-chosen words, she hastened to inform Corkey Joe fully on the attempt at her rescue, and of the abrupt apparition of the Half-breed who had dragged away Mr. Dearborn.

"Cherokee Bill!" ejaculated the false bandit, in great glee. "What did I tell you, señorita? Why, we are living right among friends!"

He seemed to forget the ladies, who affectionately embraced, as he reflected on the incident no longer a mystery to him.

"Farewell," he said at last, "above all, do not let this joyous hope of yours be manifested. You must wear a mask, too, whatever singular events may occur. This Cherokee Bill is an inseparable companion of the oldest trapper of the Rocky Mountains, and there is no trick too artful or impudent that he may not essay. Rest assured the Yager of the Yellowstone Valley, as this trapper is called, will give Kidd a teaser before long."

He bowed and left the excavation. Soon after he might have been seen perambulating the camp, cold, calm, and wary, directing the nourishing of the fires, and puffing easily at a huge meerschaum pipe with a very short stem, secured by a string to his buttonhole against loss. No one suspected what a chat he had with the beautiful prisoner.

CHAPTER XIV
THE COMPACT

After leaving his camping ground, Captain Kidd soon parted from the Englishman, whom he sent on through a valley, where he disappeared. Kidd had not much practice in using snowshoes, for he was a horseman of southern plains life; and the inevitable pain at the instep forced him to reach the higher land of the valley divide or crest, and trudge on with the rackets at his back. Here the wind had left but an inch or two of snow; and he walked for a couple of hours without noteworthy inconvenience. Finally, he came within half a mile of the Red River Half-breeds' ill-fated encampment.

When "Quarry Dick" preceded him there, he found the Canadians still digging out the wagons, and binding up their wounds and frostbites. He was much surprised at seeing so many women and girls; and, at the first words addressed to him, was still further filled with astonishment. Instead of going on to the place where – whether he knew it or not – the Botany Bay convict had prepared an enviable reception, his captain chose an elevated knoll, cut some long sticks with his hatchet knife, laid them upon the snow, and across one another in strata, so as to form a platform, and kindled a fire upon this greenwood, a tolerably familiar act in the winter. Soon the flame sprang up, hot enough to roast a buffalo whole; but he threw a couple of handfuls of stinkwood upon it to cause a black pillar of smoke.

On spying this token that his leader was at hand, the "Sydney Duck" remained in the Bois Brulés' camp as a hostage, according to usage, though the precaution would have been waived, and their captain came forth to confabulate with the other commander. Gliding along over the snow with the Canadians' expertness on what are national footwear to them, the Half-breed speedily hailed the man quietly seated at his fire.

"Who comes?" challenged the latter, cocking his rifle, for form's sake.

"Dagard, the Bois Brulé, one of the leaders of the Red River Rovers!"

"I am the leader of a large band of gold hunters," was the reply. "Glad to see you; come on."

Captain Dagard was one of those independent spirits, who would always be in conflict with the town authorities in civilisation; and also, in the wilds, did pretty much as he pleased, and executed, with delightful nonchalance, many an unjustifiable deed. His mixed blood made him now hate the whites – now scorn the reds – but all the time resist government in general, and the British Colonial one in particular. It is to be borne in mind, too, that never were two more incongruous elements in one country than the Scotch and the French settlers of Canada – the one sober, steady, strict Puritans; the other volatile, indolent for periods out of proportion to their fits of activity, and staunch upholders of the feasts of the Church.

Unprejudiced beholders cannot see any difference in the treatment by the rulers of either people; but still the French Canadians, and principally these Half-breeds, never cease complaining that they do not enjoy the same privileges as the conqueror race.

Kidd and the Manitoban sat down by one another.

"You might as well have come on into my camp," said l'Embarrasseur, reproachfully, "though we are a little upset by the storm. The moment I learnt from your adherent – a stout fellow, eh? Though a bit of a brute! – That you were so kind as to help me when the Crows were in our midst, you could be sure you were as my brother!"

"Yes, of course," stammered Kidd, at a loss to understand the allusion. "I – I came in – in the nick, didn't I?"

"Like a miracle! We thought we were gone under, sure, when you poured in that volley, and made the Crows take the back track. By all that's blue! You gave them such a share that we have seen not a feather of them since! That is one kind thing for which we are all grateful. Now, is it in our power to repay you?"

"That depends."

"You are prospecting; is our local knowledge any use to you? – it is freely yours, captain."

"I can say neither yes nor no now, for my comrades must be consulted. We are going into the Yellowstone Basin after gold – "

"Ha, ha!" laughed Dagard; "Another dive into the famous Northern El Dorado, where the way is paved with gold and silver, and the fishponds are boiling water whence one draws the poisson d'avril ready cooked!"

"Do you not believe it is likely?" queried Kidd, earnestly.

"As you say, neither yes nor no. We gave the 'Firehole' a wide berth, for we are not at home in sulphur marshes, soda lakes, and burning pits, like that of the bad place. If there be gold there, though – "

"I promise you that," returned Kidd, confidently; "all points to it. Will you join us – sharing and sharing alike – if my men agree to the union? There is enough and to spare for all of us. Besides, blood being spilt of the Indians, I am afraid my men need be five hundred, and yet prove feeble. These mountain Indians are hardy, not given to the rum bottle, and warlike above all their brethren of the plains."

"They fought like devils incarnate, I repeat. Half my command is disabled or dead, and we were lost irretrievably but for your intervention. I say that again. But what am I to do with the women?"

"What women?"

"I have under my charge sixteen women, that is, those over twenty-five years, and fourteen young girls, to say nothing of still tenderer children – "

"Oh, pshaw! If you are dragging your families about with you," began the gold hunter, contemptuously.

"You are off the track. These are valuables, not encumbrances," rejoined Dagard, tartly. "In two words, they are the captives of the Dakotas, taken away from their burnt cabins in recent raids, and they were placed in my charge so that the Indian agents might discover no traces of them. Thus I have secured the friendship of the Sioux, and if the English come to attack our little Red River Republic, they will find us reinforced by plenty o' fighting men!"

"And," proceeded Kidd, with a chuckle, "if the redcoats defeat you and you take flight back into Uncle Sam's territory, you can obtain his protection by a handing over of the captives whom you charitably snatched from the wigwam. Well conceived, Captain Dagard!"

"Well or ill conceived, it is not my invention."

"Well, anyway, no fool thought of it."

"That's where you are wrong. It's the idea of a lubberly man of mine, Dave Steelder, 'Daft Dave.' He's an innocent, as we Bretons say, an idiot, if you prefer the word."

"Oh, Daft Dave!" exclaimed Kidd, with a sparkle of the eye under his snow goggles.

"Do you know him?"

"I met him at the Humboldt Washup when the flume burst and carried away his hut and savings. They say that drove him stupid. That was in 1869, or so, but others make out he was cranky before."

"If he is an acquaintance of yours, perhaps you would like to see him. Shall I whistle him over?"

"Well, no, some other occasion! He may have the delusion that I look like one of the awkward cusses that broke a plank in the flume and let the flood spoil the diggings. Astonishing what a family likeness the red flannel shirt, the patched pants, and the high up boots gave us all at the gold mines. I have often been taken for another!" concluded Kidd, with a wink.

"How unfortunate!" said l'Embarrasseur, drolly laughing. "Then, I should not advise you to run against Dave. He's apt to tear when he's mad. Still, his strength makes him useful about a camp, though he's not bright, and though he's not trusted on guard, he throws out valuable hints now and again, as these dullards do. But this is wind work, mere talk. What have you come over to propose?"

"Well, I am thinking that you and I might work in double harness."

"Strike a bargain, eh? There's no knowing! There will be a stir up on the frontier – the Britishers are pressing on that railroad. I want all the friends I can cluster. What's your proposal?"

"Assist me to find the gold hoard in the Firehole, and I, who am not without friends in Congress, will engage to restore your captives in so glorious a manner to their relatives, that you will become a hero and have a monument in every Western city! It is true the Sioux will sharpen their knives to punish your breach of faith, but I never heard that there were many Sioux in the hotels of the Eastern States!"

"Then we unite! And instead of my being a poor leader of only a score hale men, I become a subchief of over two hundred!"

"My lieutenant! The sooner I reinforce you the better, eh? White women in the mountains and Indians within rifle range: it's a temptation they can't withstand. I ought to add that another danger exists. They say in the towns that that old rogue, Jim Ridge, boasts that he regulates this chain of the sierras."

"His friends the trappers lynch a horse thief now and then, and shoot offhand anyone robbing cachés, but that's sound trapper law."

"If he and his friends block our entrance into the Yellowstone 'Park,' what would you do?"

"Oh, when there's a man between me and what my empty pocket gapes for, either he or I go under!"

"You're the true colour," ejaculated Kidd, using a gold miner's phrase, and not, of course, reflecting on his colloquist's complexion – a sore point with mixed bloods. "I will send you a dozen men from the camp the moment I return, and you can join me at our next tent pitching, of which they will bear you word. By the way, tell Quarry Dick to make straight for that Blackstone of a Negro head shape as well as hue. I will meet him there by a circuit, for I can make no way on these confounded snowshoes."

"It comes by practice, my brave captain," said Dagard merrily, "like spending money. Au revoir! Our rally word is – "

"Gold!"

"And the countersign?"

"Beauty!"

They drank each from the others pocket flask in token of absolute trust, and the gold hunter was left to raise his little camp after carefully smothering the fire to prevent firing the brushwood of the vale beneath.

CHAPTER XV
AN INGENIOUS INTRODUCTION

More uneasy about the Indians, whom Captain Kidd knew to be embittered when repulsed at an almost victory, and about the trappers whom he rightly conjectured to have interfered to save the Canadians from annihilation, he moved leisurely to the rendezvous with the convict in order to examine the ground. But nothing was visible to accentuate his fears, and, spying the fantastic block of lava stone in question, he hastened to congratulate Dick on the splendid lie by which the gold seekers were given the credit of saving the Bois Brulés. As he expected, the Englishman, not having his own cause to move slowly, was already at the tryst. At all events, a figure in all points resembling his was before the stone, clearly outlined against it, though he was puzzled to account for a second object, human in form, but of an abnormal flesh colour, like a "raw" corpse, pendant a foot or two from the ground as if hung to a jutting point of the natural obelisk.

"Fool that I am!" suddenly ejaculated Captain Kidd, who had stopped with a chill to the heart, "It's the strange light before nightfall that is giving me a scare! Why, it's nothing but a young bear that he has killed and flayed! – Bear's steak for supper! Ha, ha!"

Indeed, with their peculiar long paws, nothing more resembles a man, excepting cousin monkey, than uncle bear, slim with wintering.

On a nearer approach, any doubt about Dick's identity with the form calmly leaning on the rifle was impossible. Nevertheless, the silence and the immobility of the bandit appalled the other, and the hanging figure, drumming with its heels on the upright stone as the spinning and unspinning of its cord of support oscillated it, increased in ghastliness and its likeness to homo rather than ursa.

Pausing again anew, he let himself be attracted to understand the puzzle, and, as Dick made no movement, far less a reply to his now frenzied appeal, he darted madly to the butte where the lava stone rose like a monument. There the explanation was ample.

Some merciless hand had slain the Englishman, beheaded him, and flared him, with the skin of the neck only left intact, and after suspending the body like an artist's écorché along the pillar, stuffed the human hide out with snow so that not a wrinkle showed. The cold had frozen this effigy into the semblance of a marble statue. Whilst the captain gazed horrified, some scratches on the obelisk near the suspended corpse caught his eyes. He read with redoubled apprehension:

" – , known as 'the Sydney Duck,' 'Sydney Dick,' and 'the Convict,' escaped from Australian prisons, murderer of Californian miners, of Don Gregorio Peralta, and of his daughter, Mrs. Filditch, tried, found guilty, and executed by Us,"

 

"THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAIN."

"Hands off! This is the buzzard's bait, do you hear?"

Then the drawing of a rifle and crossed knives, and the fur trademarks of Jim Ridge, Cherokee Bill, and the name "S. G. Filditch," firmly graven.

At the end of reading this weird death sentence, which was a warning too, Captain Kidd uttered a terrible execration, and clutching his rifle and knife, as if he expected the wild justiceers to spring out upon him from around the monolith, darted frenziedly from the unhallowed eminence.

But he had no pursuers, and reflection came to him after half an hour's mad floundering in the snow, that he would be safer among his men than solitary. Besides, Lottery Paul had probably returned, and might, in the chiefs absence, preach that doctrine of retreat to the gin palaces of the frontier which was, on the face of it, superior to the present outlook. His iron hand could alone contain the bandits if any could.

"Besides," murmured he, "what would 'Dave Steelder' say if he knew me to turn such a skulk? After all, what a riddance that rough brute is! As for me, I have had some very close calls, but fortune has carried me through."

The grey sky was darkening, distant objects were already blending into compact masses. Luckily, though not a proven trail finder, Kidd had woodcraft in plenty, and soon hit on the proper homeward direction. On spying an indubitable mark, he uttered a sigh of gratification, and hurried to make up for lost time. He judged that within the hour he would be in camp, when he came upon some fresh and bold prints in the snow crust, hardening as the night brought coolness. No one could doubt that they were made by a grizzly bear, not the black or the brown, but the genuine "Uncle Ephraim" himself. This set the fugitive a-thinking. A braver man than he does not foresee a meeting with Old Eph. without pardonable misgiving.

The grizzly or the grisly – according to whether you name him after his coat or the horror he inspires, is, far more than the lion, the king of beasts, for he is perfect in courage, in strength, steadiness under gunfire, and a noble good humour towards his folk. He is, perhaps, the only animal that dances in sheer love of amusement, and his gambols at a "bears' party" are the drollest sight a hunter ever knows. It is true few have looked on and lived to tell. The Rocky Mountains are the home of the veritable grizzly, and the frequency of his apparition among the mines of the Sierra Nevada won the title of the Grizzly Bear State for California.

Captain Kidd recovered from the recent shock that had unhinged him before a danger that required coolness to temper bravery. He shook his head like a Newfoundland coming out of the water, and growled.

"This lumbering fool has smelt the camp, and has put himself exactly in my way back. I wish he had given those Canadians a visit where there are plenty of dead bodies."

He carefully examined his rifle, slipped in a second bullet in a greased wad, and resumed his march, but with extreme caution. The difficulty was not to stumble on his foe, who, with razor sharp claws six or seven inches long, would make a man look as if he had gone through a "system of saws" in a mill.

He had proceeded some five hundred yards, so as to nearly get out of the tangle wood of deciduous trees, distorted and stunted by the cold winds, when a prolonged cavernous grumbling, arising not far from him, sent an icy shiver all through him. He stopped short, bent forward, and took a wary look. Before attaining a clearing, there was a narrow canyon to cross, profoundly cleft between two perpendicular sides, two yards deep and twenty paces long. About a third of the way up this channel, leisurely sprawling on the snow, in which he was partly embedded on account of his great weight, a grizzly was licking his fore paws and smoothing pine burrs out of his harsh coat. Suddenly, the animal winked its little savage eyes, pricked its snub ears up, and, without glancing round or caring to listen, set to sniffing. Its subtle scenting faculty had been aroused by some unwonted and consequently disquieting emanation. Nevertheless, a fact delighting the captain, it was not he to whom the bear was paying any heed.

"Good luck to the stir in the air that saves me!" he thought. "The creature never imagines that a man is treading on his tail. 'Tis a splendid fur coat; but I am not hunting grizzly just at present, thank you! I don't care for any on my toast!"

Hence, he was taking a backward step and looking about him to try to manage a circuit to avoid the encounter, when he heard what seemed an echo, only a little more so, of the bear's growl. It came from behind him, and was so angrily intoned that he was most surprised to see a second grizzly, no doubt the mate of the first, slouching along towards him, its head lowered in his track.

To be the shuttlecock between two ursine battledores is one of those experiences of which few victims narrate the incidents.

The second antagonist was certain to arrive at him by its unerring scent, and, moreover, was the nearer as well as the larger beast. To shoot and run for his life was all the course which his fright counselled, so he lifted his gun, levelled it steadily at the grizzly's eye, partly veiled by its shaggy fore hair, and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, whether the piece had been tampered with, or the snow had eaten away the barrel, the charge hung fire, and the peculiar and frightfully loud detonation betokened that the barrel had burst. Without being wounded, the captain pitched forward head foremost into the snow, from not meeting the recoil which he had nerved himself to resist.

Both bears howled together, rattled their claws and gnashed their teeth, and, with a loud snarling, bounded towards the hapless captain. Mechanically, he drew his knife, but, on scrambling to his feet, experienced a fear so inexpressibly appalling that he forgot his determination to resist to the inevitable death, and leaped away in a mad scamper.

Accustomed to riding, he was not a good pedestrian; his winter garments were unsuitable, and he was no longer blessed with youth. Besides, to get over such ragged ground, and among tough, thorny, scrubby conifera, was impossible for one in blind haste. He could tell by their breathing that the two bears were nearing him, bound for bound. He had lost his knife, and his revolver having been torn out of his belt by a briar too, he was absolutely at the mercy – an unknown element – of his pursuers. He dared not turn his head; in hunters' phraseology, he felt them ruffle his hair with their breath; and, in truth, Old Ephraim and his spouse were not a dozen steps off. His own hair stood up, spite of a cold perspiration, for he felt that he was irremediably lost. In two or three minutes, say five at most, he would become that not unique subject of a well-worn Western epitaph – granting that he was left in buriable tatters – Unknown man gobbled up by grizzly.

He was stopped by the inability to make a further move; both bears reared up, and the least towered a head and shoulders above him. He was, by the force of education, striving to recall a prayer, when a human hand unexpectedly clutched him by the collar and dashed him down, crying in a voice most energetic:

"Lay down, you fool, and give a man a chance to shoot, will you not?"

As the captain again was buried in the snow, two rapid reports of a gun extinguished in their reverberations the growls of the grizzlies. Then arose a couple of painful lamentations from their hoarse throats, and, as Kidd lifted his head, he beheld with stupefied eyes a man disdainfully pursuing the bears and keeping them "on their run" with panic by pelting them with snowballs and splinters of ice till they disappeared over a mound and into some crevice, where the chaser deemed it good sense not to follow further.