Grizzly King

Chapter 17

That night, a great sense of loneliness hit Muska again.Otto and Mitusson fell asleep early, exhausted from their trek up the mountain, and Langdon followed suit, leaving Pipenascus in the place where Otto had initially abandoned him.

Masca was almost motionless after seeing Pipenascus, his heart beating a little faster.It does not know what death is, nor what death means.Because Pipenascus's body is still warm and soft, Mascar is sure that Pipenascus will move after a while.It doesn't want to fight Pipenascus now.

The night was getting quieter, very still.Stars fill the sky, and the campfire gets smaller and smaller.

Pipenascus, however, did not move.At first, Mascar sniffed it gently and pulled its soft hair.As it did so it sobbed softly, as if to say, "I will never fight with you again, Pepenascus! Wake up, and let us be friends!"

Pipenascus remained motionless.Finally, Muska gave up, not expecting to be able to wake it up.Pipenascus was fat and had been Muska's little rival on the green grass.Muska was still whimpering, and the whimpering seemed to say how sorry he was for chasing Pepenascus.Mascar clung to Pipenascus, and soon he fell asleep.

Langdon was the first to rise the next morning.He walked over to see how Muska spent the night.Suddenly, he stopped and stood still, motionless.After a full minute, a low, strange cry came out of his mouth.It turned out that Mascar and Pipenascus were hugging each other tightly.Had Pipenascus been alive, they would have snuggled up like this, with the dead cub's little hand still on Muska.Apparently, it was Mascara.

Langdon quietly returned to where Otto slept.After a minute or two, Otto rubbed his eyes and returned to Muska with Langdon.Seeing all this, Otto was also stunned. They looked at me and I looked at you.

"Dogs eat meat," Langdon whispered, "Otto, you brought him back just to feed dogs!"

Otto didn't answer, and Langdon didn't say anything more.Afterwards, they spoke very little for a full hour.Meanwhile Mitusson came, dragged Pipenascus away, put him in a hole at the bottom of the valley, and buried him with sand and stones.Alas, there was only so much Otto and Langdon could do for Pipenascus.

On this day, Mitusen and Otto went to the mountains again.On his return, Otto brought some quartz stones, and yes, these stones showed signs of gold—they carried tools for panning for gold.

Langdon continued training Muska.Several times he brought the cub near the hounds.Once the hounds howled and were about to break off the leash and charge, Langdon whipped the hounds until the hounds quickly understood that although Muska was a bear, they couldn't hurt him.

By the next afternoon, Langdon had completely released Muska from the ropes.If he were to tie Mascar again, there would be no difficulty at all.On the third and fourth days, Otto and the Indians explored the valley to the west of the mountain, and the trip finally convinced them that the golden things they found were not worth making a fortune, but were only some drifts from the flood.

On the night of the fourth day, it was cloudy and cold.Langdon led Muska to bed and tried to sleep with him.He expected trouble, but Muska was as quiet as a kitten.It turned out that once Mascar found a suitable home for him, he would lie almost motionless until the next morning.For a while during the night, Langdon fell asleep with a hand resting on Muska's soft, warm body.

According to Otto's arrangement, it's time to continue capturing Thor.However, Landon's worsening knee injury derailed the plan.Every time Langdon walked less than a quarter of a mile, he had to sit on the horse's back, but the position of the horse made him feel so much pain that it was impossible to continue hunting.

"It won't hurt so much in a few days," Otto comforted. "If we give that big guy some more days to rest, maybe we can make him less vigilant."

Three more days passed.For Langdon, it was both rewarding and enjoyable.Muska taught him more than anything he knew about bears, especially cubs.Langdon recorded it all.

All the hounds were now shut up in the bushes, fully three hundred yards from the bivouac.Muska gradually became free, but he didn't want to escape.Soon, it discovered that Otto and Mitusen were also its friends, but Muska only followed Langdon, inseparable.

In the early morning, Otto and Mitusen will take the hounds and ride to the valley to the east.This day was the eighth day they had tracked Thor.Mitussen was about to leave, and Otto planned to return to camp that afternoon so that he and Langdon could start hunting Thor down the valley the next day.

It was a sunny morning with a cool northwest wind blowing gently.At about nine o'clock, after Langdon tied Muska to a tree, he saddled up and rode into the valley.Langdon didn't intend to hunt, but just wanted to ride happily, breathe the wind on his face, and look at the mountain scenery.

Langdon walked three or four miles north to a wide, low slope.The slope passes through the mountain and extends westward.At this time, he suddenly had an idea to visit another valley.So, he took a shortcut, turned left and right, and walked up.His knee was no longer hurting, and within half an hour he was almost at the top of the hill.

Langdon came to a narrow and steep incline that forced him to dismount and walk.At the top, he found himself on flat grass surrounded by broken, bare mountain walls.Before his eyes, as far as he could see, the meadow a quarter of a mile ahead suddenly turned into a slope, sloping gently down to the valley Langdon was looking for.

Langdon was walking on the grass, and a pit appeared on the way, which was bottomless.He came to the edge of the pit, and suddenly he fell face down, motionless as a rock.After lying down for a minute or two, he slowly raised his head.

A hundred yards from Langdon, a herd of goats, thirty or so, gathered around a small pond in the ditch.The flock consisted mostly of ewes and lambs, and Langdon could tell that there were only two rams in the flock.For half an hour Langdon lay still, watching the goats.After that, a ewe and two lambs walked towards the side of the mountain, followed by another ewe.Seeing that the whole flock was about to leave, Langdon immediately stood up and ran towards them.

Langdon's sudden appearance stunned the ewe, ram and lamb for a moment.They stood, half turned their faces away, as if unable to escape, until Langdon shortened the distance between him and the flock by half, the flock seemed to wake up from a dream, and immediately ran desperately to the side of the adjacent mountain .After a while, the clatter of sheep's hooves sounded on the cobblestone and shale.Then Langdon heard the hollow rumble of sheep's hoofs loosening rock on the high mountain cliffs for half an hour.Then, the flock appeared in the skyline area, which had turned into many small white dots.

Langdon continued on his way.After a few minutes he could see the valley below, but his view to the south was blocked by a large shoulder of rock.The rock was not too high, so Langdon climbed onto it.When he was about to reach the top, unexpectedly, his foot tripped over a stone slab, he fell down, and the rifle hit the stone heavily.

Langdon was unharmed, just a slight stabbing pain from an old knee injury.However, the gun was destroyed, the handle near the breech was smashed, and when the hand was twisted, the handle broke completely.

This accident did not affect Langdon's mood too much, because he still had two guns in his equipment, otherwise it would make him very uneasy.Langdon climbed again, stopping only when he came to what appeared to be a broad, flat ledge.It was surrounded by sharp sandstone slopes, and a hundred feet away, Langdon noticed, the ridge broke off at the bottom of a straight wall of rock.From here, however, the view is spectacular, and between the two mountains lies a vast expanse stretching to the south.Langdon sat down and took out his pipe, intending to smoke while admiring the spectacular panorama below.

Langdon could see for miles with the binoculars, and he was seeing places that hadn't been hunted yet.Less than half a mile away, a herd of caribou filed slowly across the valley floor toward the green slopes to the west.Langdon saw many grouse, their wings glistening in the sun.A moment later, two miles away, he saw goats grazing on a slope with scant grass.

The mountains of Canada stretch three hundred miles from sea to prairie, and a thousand miles from north to south. How many valleys like this are there in this vast region?Langdon was curious.He said to himself: "Hundreds? Thousands? Each magnificent valley contains a whole world, each with its own lakes, streams, and forests, with its own life."

Langdon watched the valley, which had the same soft humming and the same warm sunshine as the others; but here, it had a different life.Langdon looked northwest, and with the naked eye he could vaguely see bears prowling the far slopes.This is a new territory, full of different hopes and different mysteries.Langdon sat, reveling in the view, forgetting time, forgetting hunger.

In Langdon's mind, these valleys would never grow old, he could roam forever in them, passing from one valley to another, each with its own charms, unsolved secrets, lives to be learned.The valley seemed to Langdon impenetrable, too mysterious, as inscrutable as life itself.For hundreds of years, the valley has hummed to the ears, giving birth to countless living beings, and accepting the passing of all living beings.Langdon stared at the forested space in the distance, thinking, if the valley itself could tell a story, then what story would this valley have?How many books could record the stories they told?
Langdon knew, first of all, that the valley would whisper that a world was born; Grotesque monsters once swaggered past here, and half-bird, half-animal animals once flapped their giant wings across the sky here.Now, Langdon saw reindeer drinking by the stream and eagles soaring in the sky.

Then the valley tells how, due to the tilt of the earth's axis of rotation, great changes have taken place, wonderful times have come, night has come, the tropics have become cold, and new life of all kinds has been born all over the valley.

It must have been a long time, Langdon thought, before the first bear arrived, replacing the mammoth, the mastodon, and the other giants that had once kept company with them.This bear was the ancestor of the Grizzly Thor that he and Otto were going to hunt tomorrow.

Langdon was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the sound behind him.Then, something woke him up with a start.

If it weren't for the heavy breathing coming close to him, Langdon would have thought it was a huge fantasy in his brain.He turned his head slowly, and for a moment, his heart seemed to stop beating, and the blood in his veins seemed to have become cold and lifeless.

Across the rock, not fifteen feet away, Thor, the King of the Mountain, was standing here!It stares at its troubled opponent, its mouth ajar, its head slowly bobbing from side to side.

In that second or two, Langdon's hands unconsciously gripped the damaged rifle.He concluded that it was over for him now!
(End of this chapter)