Grizzly King

Chapter 8

On the afternoon Thor left the clay pit, Langdon and Otto crossed the summit and entered the west side of the valley.At two o'clock, Otto turned back to the hitch, leaving Langdon alone on the ridge to search the surrounding area with binoculars.After Otto returned with his pack, they walked slowly for two hours along the stream where Thor had once passed.The place where they camped for the night was only two or three miles from where Thor and Muska met.They hadn't found Thor's mark on the sand at the bottom of the creek.But Otto was confident that Thor was walking along the top of the slope.

After supper they sat down to rest and smoked their pipes.Otto said, "Landon, if you're going to write something about bears when you get out of here, don't be so highbrow like most guys who write articles. Two years ago, I took a naturalist out on a Month, the guy was so funny and offered to send me a bunch of books about bears and other wild animals. He did! I read it too. When I first read it, I laughed out loud and then I got mad , Burn them all with one fire. Bears are wonderful animals, don’t be so pedantic, in fact, there are many, many interesting things to say. It’s absolutely true!”

Langdon shook his head.

"People have to spend several years hunting non-stop before they discover the real joy of rounding up big game." He looked at the fire and said slowly, "When he feels the real fun, he will think , the most exciting thing is not hunting, but releasing. But I want to get this grizzly bear, I want to get it. I will not leave this mountain without killing this grizzly bear. But then again Back, we could have hunted two more bears today, but I didn't shoot them. Otto, I'm learning the game, and I'm starting to get a taste of the real joy of hunting. Hunting the right way gives a real feel. You don't have to Worried. I'll just put the truth in my book."

Suddenly, he turned and looked at Otto.

"What stupid things have you read in books?" he asked.

Otto puffed out a cloud of smoke thoughtfully, then said: "The thing that annoys me the most is that the guys who write say that bears have to be 'marked'. God, according to them, all bears are I had to straighten myself up and make a mark on the tree, and that place belonged to them. Until one day, another bear came, and it grew bigger, and it licked a new mark with its tongue, and the place belonged to this bear Big bear. I remember, in a book it was written that there was a grizzly bear rolling a piece of wood which he erected under a tree so that he could stand on top of it and put his mark on another above the Grizzly mark.

"No bear actually leaves a meaningful mark. I've seen grizzlies bite off chunks of bark and scratch trees like cats; in summer grizzlies get itchy and start to shed their hair, so they straighten up and lean on They rub against trees. They rub because their bodies are itchy, not because they want to mark other bears. Caribou, elk, and sika deer all do the same thing to shed their horns fluff on.

"All the writers think that each grizzly bear has its own territory. They don't understand, they don't have long hunting experience, they don't understand! I have seen eight grown grizzly bears forage in the same place. Do you remember Well, two years ago, we hunted four grizzlies in a narrow valley less than a mile. Now we have a leader among them, like this guy we tracked, but he is not alone in his territory I bet there must be twenty other bears in those two valleys! Two years ago, the naturalist I knew couldn't figure out which was a grizzly and which was a black bear. If he knew What is a brown bear, it helps me."

He drew his pipe from his mouth and spat roughly on Mars.Langdon knew that Otto had something else to say.Normally, Otto was reticent, but once he got emotional, Langdon found the most interesting moments.

"Brown bears!" growled Otto. "Think about it, Langdon. He thinks there's such a thing as brown bears! I told him there were no brown bears. The brown bears I know from books are a yellowish-brown black or grizzly." He laughed at me. Who am I? I was born to deal with bears! When I told him about the color of bears, his eyes suddenly widened, thinking that I was feeding him rope. Later, I guess that's why he sent me the book. He wanted to prove him right.

"Langdon, there are more colors on any animal on earth than bears! I've seen black bears as white as snow, and grizzlies almost as black as black bears.

I've seen brown black bears, brown grizzlies, and brown, blond, and even yellow bears.They come in different colors, just as they have different eating habits.

"I guess most naturalists go out, get to know a grizzly bear, and based on that grizzly bear, they write up details about all grizzly bears. How ridiculous! It's not fair to grizzlies , because there's not a single book in which a grizzly bear is the most ruthless, cannibalistic bad guy. Actually, he's not bad unless you corner him. As long as you don't disturb him, he has a good disposition, like a Children are curious too. Except for a few grizzlies, most grizzlies are vegetarian. I have seen grizzlies pounce on goats, sheep, caribou, and I have seen grizzlies eat with other animals without facing The animals wobble. They're curious. Langdon, you don't have to kid yourself to tell a lot about grizzlies!"

Otto shook the ashes from his pipe to emphasize his last words.As he reloaded the fresh tobacco, Langdon spoke.

"Otto, can you determine whether the big guy we're tracking is a killer in an animal hunting game?"

"It's hard to tell," Otto replied. "Based on size, it's often impossible to tell. I know a grizzly bear that's not as big as a dog, but he's a game killer. Every winter, in these mountains, hundreds of animals Hunted. When spring comes, bears eat the carcasses of those animals. Bears that eat dead bodies are not game killers. Sometimes grizzlies are natural killers; sometimes grizzlies become killers by accident. Once a grizzly If it hunts other animals, it will continue to hunt.

"Once, I saw a goat go right up to a grizzly bear on the side of the mountain. The bear didn't move, and the goat freaked out and ran right up to the old guy, and the grizzly killed the goat. Afterwards, the grizzly bear seemed surprised himself. Ten minutes later, he was still sniffing around the warm carcass. Another half hour later, the grizzly began to bite the goat. That was the first time he tasted you The so-called 'living creature'. I didn't shoot it. I'm sure it's been a game-killer since that day." "I'd think size had something to do with it," Langdon argued, "in my case. It seems that a carnivorous bear is much bigger and stronger than a vegetarian bear." "That's an interesting thing you want to write about?" said Otto, who gave a strange chuckle, "The bear is How can you get fat in September when you live only on berries, ants and maggots, so fat that you can barely walk? If you live on wild red currants, will you get fat?

"During four or five months of hibernation, the bear doesn't eat or drink. Why does it grow so fast during that time?

"How do you explain that a mother bear can nurse her cubs for a month, sometimes even two months, while she is still in the state you call 'sleep'? The period is reduced by more than one-third.

"Why don't bear cubs grow that big? I told the naturalist that grizzly bear cubs aren't much bigger than house cat cubs when they're born. He laughed. He's been laughing at me, I think, laughing. It didn't stop until he left."

"He's one of those rare fools who doesn't want to learn, but you can't quite blame him," Langdon said, "I wouldn't have believed it four or five years ago, Otto.

Actually, I didn't believe it until one time we found those cubs on Athabasca, one weighed eleven ounces and the other nine ounces, remember? "

"Landon, they're only a week old. Their mother weighed eight hundred pounds!"

For a while they smoked their pipes in silence.

"It's unbelievable," Langdon continued, "but it is. Otto, this is simply the result of the creator's forethought. If the cubs were not about the size of a house cat's cubs, during the weeks of hibernation, the mother would How can a bear feed its cubs without eating or drinking? But there seems to be a flaw in the creator's arrangement: an ordinary black bear is only half the size of a grizzly bear, but the cubs of a black bear are much larger than those of a grizzly bear. Why is it..."

Otto smiled mildly and interrupted his friend.

"It's easy, it's easy, Langdon!" he exclaimed, "do you remember last year when we picked strawberries in the valley and threw snowballs up the hills for two hours?

It gets colder the higher you climb, right?It's the first day of July and you're going to be terribly cold on those mountain tops!Langdon, the grizzly bear's den is high and the black bear's den is low.When the snow around the grizzly den is four feet thick, black bears can still feed their cubs in the thick woods of the valley.The black bear hibernates a week or two later than the grizzly, and in the spring it wakes up a week or two earlier than the grizzly.In addition, a black bear is fatter than a grizzly during hibernation, and when it comes out of the den, it is not too thin, so the female black bear has a lot of energy to feed her cubs.

It looks like this to me. "

Langdon exclaimed excitedly: "Otto, you are so right, I never thought of it that way!"

"There are many, many things you never imagined unless you experienced them yourself," said Otto. It became a healthy sport. One day I lay on top of a hill for seven hours and watched a flock of sheep play, and I had more fun than beating them all to death.”

Otto stood up and stretched, the gesture he was about to make after dinner.

"Tomorrow... the weather will be fine," he said, yawning, "look at how white the snow is on the top of the mountain."

"Otto..."

"what?"

"How heavy are the bears we're tracking?"

"Twelve hundred pounds, and maybe a little more. Langdon, I'm not interested in observing a grizzly bear as close as you are. I'd rather dry his fur now!"

"Is it a grizzly in the prime of life?"

"I guess he was about eight to 12 years old. By the way, he climbed up the hill, which is not something an old bear would do."

"Otto, have you ever met some very old bears?"

"Some were so old they needed crutches," Otto said. "I've shot some old bears that had lost all their teeth."

"how old are you?"

"Thirty, thirty-five, maybe forty. Good night, Langdon!"

"Good night, Otto!"

Hours later, Langdon was awakened by a burst of rain.He poked his head out of the blanket and yelled at Otto.It turned out they hadn't pitched a tent.After a while, he heard Otto calling himself an idiot.The night was dark as a cave, save for the pale lightning that streaked the sky, and the muffled rumble of thunder that rumbled across the mountains.Langdon untied the drenched blanket and stood up.Blinding lightning illuminated Otto, who was sitting on a blanket, his hair hanging down his long, thin face.Langdon laughed out loud at the sight of him.

"Tomorrow...the weather will be fine," he taunted, repeating what Otto had said hours before, "look how white the snow is on the top of the mountain."

Whatever Otto said was drowned out by a burst of thunder.

Langdon waited for another bolt of lightning to arrive, then sprinted for shelter under a thick balsam tree.He crouched under a tree and waited for five to 10 minutes when the rain suddenly stopped.The rain came and went quickly, the thunder rolled to the south, and the lightning followed.

In the darkness, Langdon heard Otto groping somewhere nearby.Then the match was lit, and he saw his partner looking at his watch.

"It's almost three o'clock," said Otto. "What a nice shower, eh?"

"I hope so," Langdon teased. "Otto, you know, no matter what time of day, the snow on the top of the mountain is so white..."

"Shut up and build a fire! At least we know how to cover our filthy bodies with blankets. Are you wet?"

The rain drenched Langdon from head to toe, and he felt like a drowning mouse.

"No. I hid under the thick balsam trees, and I prepared myself. When you called my attention to the snow on the mountain peaks, I knew..."

"Don't mention the snow!" Otto roared.Langdon could hear him snapping the pitch-stained branches under the spruce.

Langdon walked over to help Otto. After 5 minutes, the fire started.The firelight shone on their faces, and they looked at each other, neither of them sullen.Otto grinned, wet hair covering his face.

"When it rained, I fell asleep," Otto explained. "I thought I fell into the lake. When I woke up, I tried to swim."

In early July, in the northern mountains of British Columbia, it was raining and cold at three in the morning.From time to time Langdon and Otto added fuel to the fire and dried blankets and laundry.At five o'clock they had breakfast; just after six they set out for the valley with two saddles and simple packing.Otto triumphantly reminds Langdon that his prophecy is about to come true, as it is a beautiful day after the thunderstorm.

The grass underfoot was covered with rain and dew.The water in the stream rose, and with the sound of rising water, the murmur of the valley became louder.Last night, half of the snow on the top of the mountain had melted, and Langdon felt that the flowers seemed bigger and more beautiful.There was a morning sweetness and freshness in the air from the valley.The sun was first shining, and the morning light pierced through the clear sky, filled the valley, and reflected on the warm, golden water.

Langdon and Otto made their way to the bottom of the creek, leaning from their saddles, surveying every patch of sand they passed.Before he had gone a quarter of a mile, Otto stopped suddenly with a cry of alarm, pointing to a patch of sand where Thor had left a huge footprint.Langdon dismounted and measured the footprints.

"That's it!" Langdon cried, with excitement in his voice. "Otto, you'd better dismount and walk, wouldn't you?"

Otto shook his head.Before expressing his opinion, he got off his horse and carefully inspected the surrounding mountains in front of him with long binoculars.However, he found nothing.

"It's still at the bottom of the creek, maybe three or four miles ahead," said Otto. "We'll ride another two miles and find a good place for the horses. By then the grass and bushes will be dry." gone."

Once you find the footprints, it's easy to follow Thor's whereabouts, because he's moving near the stream.The hunters unsaddled their horses, and tied them up in a small spruce grove in the middle of a grassy slope, three or four hundred yards from the boulder-heap.

Ten minutes later, Langdon and Otto cautiously came to the soft sand, where Thor and Muska met.Heavy rain washed away the cub's small footprints, but the beach was already messed up by grizzly tracks.Otto watched Langdon grin, his teeth gleaming.

"It didn't go very far," he whispered. "It wouldn't be surprising if it lingered around at night. It's not far ahead of us somewhere."

Otto moistened his fingers and held them above his head to sense the direction of the wind.He nodded meaningfully.

"We'd better go up the slope," he said.

They rounded the end of the boulders, guns in hand, and walked toward a small valley that might have been the first easy slope.At the bottom of the river valley, the two stopped again.The bottom of the valley was covered with sand, and there was another bear's footprint in the sand.Otto dropped to his knees.

"It's another grizzly," Langdon said.

"No, it's not a grizzly bear, it's a black bear. It's a bear's hind foot, with a round heel," said Otto. "Langdon, didn't I tell you the difference between the footprints of a black bear and a grizzly bear?" If it had been a grizzly, it would have been pointed. The footprint is too broad here; the paws are too long for the length of the footprint. Clearly it is a black bear."

"Come on," Langdon said. "Come on! The bear has crossed the two-hundred-yard creek valley and up the slope." Langdon and Otto followed.On the first crest of the slope, the track quickly disappeared into the thick grass and hard shale, but the hunters were not much interested in the track at the moment.Standing on the high slope they walked through, you can have a glimpse of the spectacular scenery below.

Otto never took his eyes off the creek bottom.He knew he would find a grizzly there.Right now, he has no interest in anything other than the Grizzlies.But Langdon, on the other hand, was interested in everything around him, as long as it was alive and moving.Every rock, bramble, and bush might attract his attention, and his eyes kept exploring the high ridges, peaks, and natural paths.Because of this, when he saw something, he would suddenly grab the arm of his companion and pull him to his side.

"Look!" he whispered, holding out an arm.

Otto watched intently in the direction Langdon's arm extended.His eyes widened in surprise.Above them, there was a large rock, not more than thirty feet away from them.The shape of the rock is like a textile cargo box, and there is a bear leaning against the far side of the rock, with half of its back exposed.It was a black bear, its fur glistening in the sun.Otto watched for half a minute, then he smiled.

"It's sleeping, deep in sleep! Langdon, do you want to have some fun?"

Otto put down his gun and drew his long hunting knife.He giggled softly as he touched the sharp point of the knife.

"Langdon, if you haven't seen a bear run before, you've almost seen it now! You stay here!"

Otto climbed up the slope in the direction of the rock.He crawled quietly, very slowly.Meanwhile, Langdon waited, holding his breath.Twice Otto looked back and grinned.In a little while there will no doubt be a jaw-dropping bear race for the top spot in the Rockies.Langdon thought of this and saw Otto's slender figure creeping forward, and he couldn't help but feel that the scene was a little funny.At last Otto reached the rock.His long blade gleamed in the sun; and the next moment the knife flew forward and half a foot of steel sank into the bear's rump. Thirty seconds passed, and something Langdon would never forget happened: the bear stood still.Otto stabbed again, but did not move.Just as the steel knife plunged into it for the second time, Otto remained motionless like a rock.He crouched against the rock, opened his mouth wide, and stared at Langdon blankly.

"What's going on here?" Otto said, standing up slowly. "It's not sleeping, it's dead!"

Langdon ran to him, and together they skirted the end of the rock again.Otto was still holding the knife in his hand, with a strange expression on his face, his brows were tightly furrowed, and there were wrinkles full of doubts.

For a while he stood silent.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said, slowly sheathing the knife. "This is a female bear. From the look on her face, she already has babies, very young ones. "

"It was catching woodchucks and knocking over rocks," Langdon added. "Killed, didn't it?"

Otto nodded.

"I've never seen anything like it," he repeated. "I've never seen a bear die pawing under a rock. I can't believe it! I don't know where his young are, poor kid! "

Otto knelt down and examined the she-bear's teats.

"It's only had two babies, maybe one," he said, looking up. "About three months old."

"Are they going to starve?"

"If there is only one bear cub, maybe not. The little one has enough milk to eat and doesn't have to find food for himself. The cub is very similar to a human baby, can be weaned early, and can grow to be half-sized on the milk .It depends on when the mother bear leaves her cubs and let the cubs live alone." Otto began to preach, "Landon, if you marry in the future, don't let your wife do that. Sometimes, the children will Get angry and cause trouble."

Otto turned and walked up the crest, his eyes searching the valley again; Langdon followed, a step away from Otto, thinking about what had happened to the cub.

At this moment, Maskar and Thor were sleeping on the ledge.In the dream, Mascar saw his mother who was crushed under the rock, sobbing softly.

(End of this chapter)