Pod said the scene was without a parallel; he was soaked to his equator; the half-christened, half-drowned Pythagorina Podina was picked up from the flood with a tablespoon, and the ceremony finished; then she was rolled on the barrel to get all the water out of her, and put to bed with hot flatirons at her feet to prevent croup and mumps. Then the wake broke up. I don't believe the child understood a word that the priest said; Pod didn't.

That night he got up a fine supper, and invited some old friends.

He bought a big porterhouse steak, thick and tender, and personally broiled it on his patent folding stove. Just when everything was on the table and the guests were finding stones and tin plates to sit on, Don, not having had a thing to eat for an hour, coolly pulled the hot steak off the platter and dropped it on the ground. Pod didn't say anything, though, but just forked it on to the platter and sc.r.a.ped off some dry gra.s.s and a sliver and a bug, and carved it up and generously put it on the ladies'

plates. The ladies looked at the dog, and then at Pod, not knowing which to thank, then feeling sensitive about accepting the best part of the steak, insisted upon Pod's having one of their pieces and c.o.o.nskin the other; and both men being kind and gallant accepted the compliment, and all fell to eating. But the guests didn't eat much. They said they had just had dinner. You could see plainly from their appet.i.tes that they were telling the truth.

After supper Don feasted on the tougher parts of the steak, and we donks were fed the sc.r.a.ps of potatoes and bread and tin tomato and peach cans. When the banquet was over the guests went home.

Pod devoted Monday morning to business, and took in a good stock of supplies, and after lunch we set out on the trail to Florisant, about twenty miles away. About six o'clock we went into camp on the margin of a famous petrified forest. Pod objected at first, because of the scarcity of fire-wood.

"Lots of petrified wood chips lying around," I remarked; "and they'll last. Ordinary wood burns up too fast."

"Bright idea!" exclaimed Pod. And c.o.o.nskin went to work gathering petrified wood for the supper fire. "The only trouble will be in starting the fire," said Pod. "Just as soon as it's once going, it ought to burn smoothly enough--might pour coal oil on the chips.

What do you say, c.o.o.nskin?"

c.o.o.nskin's opinion didn't benefit Pod much. His hard-wood fire wasn't very satisfactory, but with some dry brush the men got the meal under way. Next morning we visited the noted petrified stump, measuring upwards of forty-five feet in circ.u.mference. Several saws were imbedded in it, for many futile attempts had been made to take off some slices for the Denver Exposition. It has been estimated by various ornithologists, botanists and entomologists that the stump is millions of years old. I think they were guessing at it, for I couldn't see the rings, and even if I had seen them with a telescope a fellow couldn't live long enough to count them.

We journeyed until ten at night, stopping at Florisant only a few minutes to buy a crate of peaches. Several times I had a suspicion that we had been misdirected. When we came to the end of a narrow wood-road I was sure of it. We went into camp, and before breakfast a timberman called on us.

"You kin trail through the timber to Pemberton," said he to Pod, "and then cut through to Fairplay, er you kin go back the way ye came."

"What do you say?" Pod inquired, turning to c.o.o.nskin.

"I think best to go through the woods," said the valet.

So we were headed for the timber. Our tramp through the forest I cannot soon forget. Up and down the rocky heights, through thickets of quaking asp and pine, tangled roots and fallen trees, we climbed and panted and coughed and brayed for some four miles, when we stopped to rest and realized we were lost. c.o.o.nskin said he was an experienced woodman, and would blaze the trees so we would get out again. Wonderful! the amount of learning he had gleaned from dime novels. He lagged behind to do the blazing; and pretty soon I smelt smoke. The Professor snuffed.

"Smells as if the woods were on fire somewhere," hinted Pod.

"Look behind you; they are!" I exclaimed. And Pod caught that erudite valet-back-woodsman in the act of setting a tree on fire with oil and matches. Fortunately for us the wind wasn't blowing strong, but we had to change our course some, and hustle faster, for the blazing trail chased us. c.o.o.nskin learned a new lesson, and turned down the corner of the page so he'd recollect it. After Pod had explained the meaning of the word "blaze" in this case, the fellow was more put out than the fire.

At length we struck a trail which led to a couple of cabins in the canyon. A board sign informed us it was simply Turkey Creek. I couldn't see any turkeys, but there was good pasturage around. The hot trip through the timber made us all hungry.

It was three o'clock when we donks were picketed and allowed to graze. Then c.o.o.nskin went fishing. He said he had seen some trout in the stream; by supper time he had caught a nice mess. Pod said he would fry the fish, and went at it so enthusiastically that he forgot to put the bag of corn meal back in its place. After the meal was over, he began to look around for the bag. It was nowhere to be found; I had eaten the corn meal and bag. It was comical how those two men puzzled their brains about that missing commodity.

When c.o.o.nskin detected some meal stamped in the ground, Pod pointed at me and said, "That's the thief, there."

Next morning, c.o.o.nskin was the first to return from fishing, and looked much excited. When Pod returned he told him he had seen huge bear tracks; he was going bear-hunting. Pod laughed at him.

"Now let me tell you," said the boy, "we aren't likely to get any big game on this trip if we are looking and gunning for it. That was my experience in the woods of Wisconsin. The men at the saw-mill said we should see bear in this forest, but where are they? It's my opinion if we loiter around this here canyon a day without guns we will see a bear pretty soon. A silvertip would be a boon to you, Prof; its skin would fetch fifty dollars or more.

Let's look for bear."

"What would you do if you saw a bear?" Pod asked.

"Well, now leave that to me," said c.o.o.nskin. "In the first place, it would be worth a hairbreadth escape to see one wild; I've only seen bears in circuses, or traveling chained to Italians; in the second place, I can run. I've plenty of medals for sprinting, but if I saw a real bear I could beat all records."

Pod looked at me and I looked at Pod; I hadn't anything to say on the subject; it didn't interest me as much as it did c.o.o.nskin. Pod went fishing that afternoon with a gun, and took the whole a.r.s.enal along with him, including the axe.

Somewhere about five o'clock Pod came into camp with a good mess of trout. After cleaning the fish, he took off his guns, and laid down on the gra.s.s, and wondered if that crazy valet had run across any more bear tracks. He wasn't there long when, suddenly, I heard yells issuing from the canyon down stream round the bend. The shouting sounded nearer every second, and I soon distinguished c.o.o.nskin's voice. Pod got up from the ground excitedly.

"c.o.o.nskin's in trouble, plain enough," said Pod aloud to himself, "I must run to his aid." So he started on a trot down stream to the bend, and then quickly turned, falling all over himself, and ran toward the cabins faster than I ever saw him run before or since. And immediately c.o.o.nskin came flying into view with the biggest bear at his heels I ever want to see.

That sight paralyzed me; I couldn't get on to my feet for a minute or two, then I broke the rope and kited up the canyon a hundred yards, where behind a tree I waited to see the interesting finish.

CHAPTER XL.

BY PYE POD.

Who dared touch the wild bear's skin Ye slumbered on while life was in? --_Scott._

How fast a man can run when he knows he's got to win a race! There was one time in my life when "can't" was an obsolete word in my vocabulary. It was when that silvertip granted c.o.o.nskin's chief desire in the field of adventure.

"Shoot him! Shoot him!" cried the angler, as he fairly flew past me, headed for the first cabin.

But I had neither time nor gun to shoot; when I heard bruin at my heels I switched off to the left and ran three times around the second cabin before I realized the bear had taken a stronger fancy to my comrade. It seems he had chased c.o.o.nskin around the cabin several times, until the man dived in the door and head first out of the window. Bruin followed in, but remained. He smelled the fragrant peaches.

c.o.o.nskin, however, under the impression that bruin was still after him, ran twice around the cabin before he climbed a tree.

Meanwhile, I, having climbed a tree close to the cabin, descended to the cabin roof. I knew silvertips couldn't climb trees, so I felt safe. The sudden shuffle of my feet on the gravel-covered roof disturbed the peace of the present inc.u.mbent, and out he came, rose on his haunches and looked about to see what was up. I was immovable. Back into the cabin went brother Bruin, and began to break up things, generally.

Then followed a few moments of dreadful silence. Not a sound issued from c.o.o.nskin's tree; he was probably trying to recover his breath and reason. Night soon fell upon us; it gets dark early in the canyons, and the mercury falls fast. I was chilly, for I shivered frightfully. The blankets and guns were on the ground just outside the cabin.

"Let's flip a coin to see which of us goes down for a gun,"

suggested c.o.o.nskin from his tree. But I did not take him seriously.

"Don't you wish you had taken the fish-line off your rod?" he added; "you could fish up a blanket and keep from freezing."

"By jingo!" I exclaimed, "I have my line, and I'll try it."

At once I fashioned a fish-pole out of a pine bough, and after much patience secured the only blanket within reach. Then winding it around myself, I lay as snug as possible, but couldn't go to sleep. That was the longest night I ever experienced. How long we should be kept off the earth, was an unpleasant speculation. Once I called to c.o.o.nskin not to go to sleep and tumble out of the tree, but he answered that he was so stuck up with pitch he couldn't fall.

Our hopes were low, when, suddenly, about seven o'clock, from the canyon below appeared a man in the rough garb of a mountaineer, with a rifle across his shoulder and a hunting knife in his belt.

As he was about to pa.s.s I hailed him.

The hunter stopped, looked my way, approached to within a few feet of the cabin, and said a cheery "Good morning." I responded in a mood still more cheery.

"What you doin' up there--smoking? Had breakfast, I reckon."

"No, haven't cooked yet this morning," I returned.

"Glad t' hear that--haven' et yet myself. Got 'nough to go round?"

he asked, shifting a cud of tobacco from one side to the other.

"Don't know about that," I said. "You'll have to ask the boss--he's inside."

As the rugged looking huntsman approached the cabin door, I held my breath, but I rose to my feet when I actually saw the hunter's hat rise on his uplifted hair as he looked into the cabin door.

With the quickness and coolness that come to one habituated to solitary life in the wilds, he put his Sharp's rifle to his shoulder, aimed and fired. There was a second report, followed by a tremendous thud, and the sound of something within struggling for life and vengeance. The hunter had no sooner fired than he dodged, and stood ready for a second charge; but that was not needed.