As he advanced, he could hear a plunging and splashing of water, with other noises,--as the snorting and growling of the bear, and the crashing of frozen snow, all mixed up in confusion of sounds.
Concluding that these noises were caused by the struggle still going on between the man and the bear, he hurried forward. Strange! there came no voice from Pouchskin!
When within about three paces of the broken edge, an object came under his eyes, that caused him to halt in his track. That object was the snout of the bear, that was projected upward above the surface of the snow. The eyes of the animal were not visible, nor any other part of it, except the aforesaid snout, and about six inches of the muzzle.
The thought instantly occurred to Alexis, that the bear had reared upon his hind feet, and was endeavouring to clamber out; and this was true enough, for the instant after, he was seen to spring perpendicularly upward, until his whole head and part of his neck became visible. Only for an instant, however; for Bruin, who now appeared to be playing Jack-in-the-box, sank once more out of sight, snout and all.
The young hunter was just regretting that he had not taken a snap shot at the animal"s head; but before ten seconds of time had elapsed, the snout was again popped up by the edge of the hole. In all probability the bear would make a second attempt to spring out.
Alexis was therefore waiting till the whole head should show itself; but quick as a flash of lightning, it occurred to him that the brute might at the second effort succeed in reaching the surface of the snow, and then he would himself be in danger. To avoid this contingency, he resolved to fire at once; not at the snout, for, although he could not have failed to send his bullet through it, he knew that that would not kill the bear, but only render him more desperately furious, if such a thing had been possible.
It was the bear"s skull he meant to take aim at. From the position of the animal"s snout, of course he could tell exactly where the head must be, though he could not see it.
Had Alexis been an unskilled marksman, he would have stood his ground; and, guessing the position of the bear"s head, would have fired at it through the snow. But he did not act in this manner. He had scientific knowledge sufficient to tell him that his bullet, sent in a slanting direction, might glance off the frozen crust, and miss the mark altogether. To ensure its direction, therefore, he instantly glided two steps forward, poked the barrel of his piece through the snow, until the muzzle almost touched the head of the bear--and then fired!
For some seconds he saw nothing. The smoke of the gunpowder, as well as the snow-dust blown up before the muzzle of the gun, formed a dense cloud over the spot. But though Alexis could not see the effect of his shot, he could tell by what he heard that his bullet had done good work.
A loud "swattering" at the bottom of the hole proclaimed that the bear was struggling in the water; while his piteous whines and faint grunting told that his fierce strength was fast pa.s.sing away.
As soon as the smoke had cleared off, Alexis upon his knees crept forward to the edge, and looked over it. There was blood upon the snow; the side against which the bear had stood was crimsoned with streams of it; and below, in the water, among the clumps of broken snow-crust, appeared a dark-brown ma.s.s, which Alexis knew to be the body of the animal.
It was still in motion; but as it was in a prostrate att.i.tude, and making only feeble efforts, the young hunter knew that the life was nearly out of it.
It was not this that was now causing him to look down with such an anxious and troubled countenance. It was his apprehensions for Pouchskin. Where was he? At the bottom of the crater-like pit Alexis could see the body of the animal, but nothing of a man--neither arms, legs, nor body. Could he be under the bear, concealed by the s.h.a.ggy hair? Was he hidden under the black water that filled the bottom of the ravine?--or, horrible thought! was he dead, and had his body been carried off by the current that rushed rapidly under the snow?
This was not improbable, for Alexis could see that there was a sort of arched tunnel between the snow and the water, quite large enough to have admitted the body of a man!
In agony he cried out, calling Pouchskin by name. He was repeating his despairing invocation, when all at once a loud laugh echoed in his ears, uttered close behind him. In the laughter he recognised the voice of Ivan.
Alexis suddenly leaped to his feet, wondering what on earth could be the cause of this ill-timed merriment. He turned towards Ivan with the intention of chiding him; but at that moment an object fell under his eye, that hindered him from carrying his intention into effect. On the contrary, the sight he saw caused him such joy, that he could not restrain himself from joining Ivan in his laughter. No wonder. The sight was odd enough to have drawn a smile from a dying man. A spectacle more ludicrous could scarce have been conceived.
A little further down the ravine, and about ten paces from where the boys were standing, an object was seen protruding above the snow. It was about ten inches in vertical diameter, something less horizontally, and of a roundish or oval shape. In colour it was almost white as the snow itself: for, indeed, it was sprinkled over with this material out of the bosom of which it had just emerged. A stranger coming upon the ground might have been sorely puzzled to make out what it was; but not so Ivan, who, on first beholding it, as it popped upward through the frozen crust, recognised it as the head of Pouchskin. Alexis also made it out at the first glance; and it was the comic twinkle of Pouchskin"s eyes--denoting that no great damage had happened to him--that led Alexis to join his brother in the laughter.
Their merriment, however, was of short continuance--only an involuntary burst, for a moment"s reflection told them that Pouchskin, although they saw him alive, might nevertheless have sustained some serious injury; and both at the thought hastened up towards the head.
On getting close to it, however, Ivan was unable to control himself, and once more gave way to a fit of involuntary laughter. The head of the old guardsman, standing up like a sphinx above the frozen surface,--his grizzled hair powdered all over with snow like the poll of some grand flunkey,--his long moustache loaded with it,--his eyes sparkling and twinkling, and his features set in a serio-comic expression,--all combined to form a picture that it was difficult to contemplate with seriousness.
Alexis, however, anxious to ascertain as to whether Pouchskin had received any dangerous wound, did _not_ this time join in his brother"s mirth; and, as soon as they came near enough, his inquiries were directed to that end.
"Only scratched a bit, masters!" answered the old guardsman,--"only scratched a bit--nothing much; but the bear--the bear! where has the brute gone?"
"To his long home," answered Alexis; "you need be under no further apprehension about him. I think your knife must have well-nigh settled his account, for he was unable to get out of the hole again; but, fortunately, I have finished him with a bullet, and it only remains for us to haul his carca.s.s up and take the skin off it. First, however, let us endeavour to extricate you, my good Pouchskin; and then you can tell us by what means you have managed to make an escape that certainly appears miraculous!"
So saying, Alexis, a.s.sisted by Ivan, commenced digging away the hard crust that surrounded the neck of Pouchskin; and kept on at it, until they had uncovered his shoulders. Then seizing him by the arms--one on each side--they drew him up, till his feet once more rested on the surface of the snow.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
A SUBNIVEAN ESCAPE.
Pouchskin proceeded to describe the manner of his escape--his young masters listening to him with great interest--although they already guessed pretty nearly how it had been accomplished. Still there were some points not so clear to them, which the old guardsman detailed.
In the first place, he had retreated from the bear, not because he believed himself vanquished, but because he had lost his knife. Its handle, wet with blood, had slipped from his grasp; and he could not tell what had become of it! Finding himself unarmed, of course his next thought was to get out of Bruin"s way, for what could an unarmed man do in the embrace of a bear--and such a bear?
He then turned and ran; but he had quite forgotten the dangerous character of the snow-bed--the bridge that had refused to carry him before; though, indeed, over it was the only direction he could have taken. Had he attempted to run to the right or left, his course must have been up-hill; and the bear would have been certain to overhaul him in a couple of leaps. After all, he had taken the proper direction; and, as it proved in the end, his breaking through was the most fortunate accident that could possibly have happened to him. Had it not chanced so, he would, in all probability, have fallen into the clutches of the bear, and been torn to shreds by the infuriated animal.
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 s.p.a.ce that would allow his body to pa.s.s. 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 pract.i.tioner."
Their next business was to look after the bear. On going back to the hole, and, gazing into it, the animal, as Alexis had antic.i.p.ated, was quite dead; and the water, partially dammed up by the huge carca.s.s, 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 ma.s.s 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 carca.s.s, 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 carca.s.s 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 carca.s.s 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 pa.s.sed through Bruin"s brain, crushing his skull like a sh.e.l.l!
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 carca.s.s; 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 carca.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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_.