"For fifteen minutes--twenty--perhaps--we fought desperately. Writhing, struggling, I could feel the brute"s hot breath on my face and his lolling tongue dripped saliva. Finally, his heavy breathing told me he was getting winded, and I knew that if my strength did not fail me I should be the victor. Fortunately, I was in splendid physical condition.
Not once did I lose my presence of mind in this terrible crisis. I was as calm as I am this minute, while the bear was letting out roars of rage and pain that curdled the blood of those who heard them.
"At last I made a superhuman effort and backed the brute up against a tree. Gripping his nose and jaw, I had doubled up my leg and thrust my knee into his stomach, which was of course cruel punishment--when, just then----"
A slight cough made Mr. Penrose turn quickly. Miss Mattie Gaskett, whose eyes were nearly as large as Mr. Cone"s at this version of the encounter, was standing behind him with "Cutie" in a wicker basket.
Mr. Penrose looked disconcerted for a moment, and then that presence of mind of which he boasted came to his a.s.sistance and he said ingratiatingly:
"This young lady will vouch for the fact that my clothes were in shreds--ribbons----"
"Why--er--yes, you had lost your shirt bosom," Miss Gaskett agreed, doubtfully.
Remarking that he would finish the story when Mr. Cone had more leisure, Mr. Penrose "skedaddled" after the bell-boy with unmistakable alacrity.
"And how is kitty?" inquired Mr. Cone, beaming upon Miss Gaskett. "Did you take her with you this summer?"
As he lifted the cover and looked in the basket, "Cutie"s" pupils enlarged and she shrank from him. "Cutie" had a good memory.
"Luckily for her I did not," Miss Gaskett answered. "If I had, I should have lost her."
"Lost her?"
"Coyotes."
"They would have _eaten_ her?"
Miss Gaskett nodded.
"Undoubteely. They were thick as anything. They howled hideously every morning before sunrise, and it was not safe to leave one"s tent at night without a weapon."
"Whew!" Mr. Cone"s lips puckered in a whistle.
His astonishment inspired Miss Gaskett to continue:
"Yes, indeed! And once when I was out walking ever so far from everybody I met one face to face. My first impulse was to run, but I thought if I did so it might attack me, so, trying not to show that I was frightened, I picked up a stick, and just then----"
Seeing that Mr. Cone"s gaze wandered, Miss Gaskett paused to learn the cause of it. She flushed as she found that Mrs. Budlong, with a smile wreathing her face, was listening to the recital.
"I"ll tell you the rest when you are not so busy," Miss Mattie said, taking her key from Mr. Cone hastily.
Mrs. Budlong declared that her pleasure equalled his own when Mr. Cone expressed his delight at seeing her, and there was no thought on the minds of either as to the hotel rules she had violated or the food she had carried away from the table in the front of her blouse and her reticule.
"You are looking in splendid health, Mrs. Budlong," he a.s.serted, quite as if that lady ever had looked otherwise.
"Yes, the change benefited me greatly." A stranger might have gathered from the plaintive note in her voice that prior to her trip she had been an invalid.
"You, too, found the Western country interesting?"
"Oh, very! At heart, Mr. Cone, I am a Child of Nature, and the primitive always appeals to me strongly," Mrs. Budlong hesitated and seemed debating. Having made her decision she asked in an undertone:
"I can trust you?"
"_Absolutely_," replied Mr. Cone with emphasis, which intimated that the torture chamber could not wring from him any secret she chose to deposit.
"I had a very peculiar experience in the Yellowstone. I should never mention it, if you were not more like a brother to me than a stranger.
It is altogether shocking."
Mr. Cone"s eyes sparkled.
"Purely in a spirit of adventure, I took a bath in a beaver dam. It was in a secluded spot, and so well protected that I went in--er--I did not wear my bathing suit. The birds twittered. The arched trees made a green canopy above me. The sunshine sparkled on the placid bosom of the water.
A gentle breeze, warm, sweet-scented, caressed me as I drank in the beauty of the scene.
"Then I plunged in--the temperature was warmer than tepid--delightful. I felt like a nymph, a water-sprite, or something, as I swam out to the middle and found a footing. The bottom was rather oozy, and there were green patches floating on the surface, otherwise it was ideal.
"Noticing a brown spot on my arm, I touched it. It was squashy and pulpy. Then it moved! A leech--and it sunk a million feet into me as soon as I attempted to remove it. I was _black_ with them, if you will believe me, literally _covered_. Repulsive, disgusting--blood-suckers, sucking my blood like vacuum-cleaners, Mr. Cone! Imagine my horror."
Mr. Cone tried to.
"Another woman would have screamed or fainted," Mrs. Budlong continued, "but I come of different stock, and ancestry will tell at such moments.
I am a Daughter of the Revolution and my father fought all through the Civil War as a sutler. Not a sound pa.s.sed my lips as I got back to sh.o.r.e, somehow, and, weak from loss of blood, sank down to consider how to get rid of the leeches.
"In emergencies I am a resourceful woman. Recalling that I had a match--only one little match--in my sweater pocket, it occurred to me that I might build a smudge and smoke them off. I sc.r.a.ped some leaves together, struck my match, and, just then----"
But just then Mr. Budlong, who had stopped to look after the trunks, scuffled in the doorway, and in his eagerness to greet him Mr. Cone forgot completely the narrative Mrs. Budlong was reciting for his benefit. Nor did he ever hear its termination.
Even as the proprietor stood at his desk wondering if the later train had brought any more prodigals, a commotion on the veranda was followed by the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Appel.
Mr. Appel was using a stick and walking with such difficulty that Mr.
Cone hurried forward and asked with real solicitude:
"My dear friend, whatever is the matter? Has your old enemy Rheumatism again got his clutches on you?"
"Rheumatism!" Mr. Appel snorted. "You lie on your back with 2,000 pounds on top of you and see how you like it!"
Mr. Cone was puzzled, and said so.
Mr. Appel explained tersely:
"A bear walked on me--that"s all that happened. A silvertip stood on the pit of my stomach and ground his heel into me."
"_Tsch! tsch! tsch!_" Mr. Cone"s eyes were popping.
"If it were not for the fact that I"m quick in the head my wife would be a widow. I was in my sleeping bag and saw the bear coming. I knew what was going to happen, and that I had one chance in a thousand. It flashed through my mind that a horned toad when threatened with danger will inflate itself to such an extent that a wagon may pa.s.s over it, leaving the toad uninjured. I drew a deep breath, expanded my diaphragm to its greatest capacity, and lay rigid. It was all that saved me."
Again Mr. Cone"s tongue against his teeth clicked his astonishment at this extraordinary experience, and while he congratulated Mr. Appel upon his miraculous escape he noted that he was wearing souvenirs of his trip in the way of an elk-tooth scarf-pin and a hat-band of braided horse hair.
The same train had brought Mrs. J. Harry Stott apparently, for the elevator was barely closed upon the victim of the picturesque accident to which Mr. Cone had just listened, when the office was illumined by her gracious presence.