Adventures in Many Lands | Page 9

were more forcible than soothing or complimentary
when I explained the matter to him during the drive to the inn, where
he dropped me, himself going on for the doctor as fast as two horses
could travel.
It did not take us long to improvise a stretcher, and, with the willing
help of two men and of the landlady, in about three hours we had
Halley in his room. But a hideous walk it was down the cañon, every
step we made wringing a groan from the poor fellow except when he
fainted from pain.
The doctor did not arrive till the following morning, by which time the
wounds were in a dreadful condition, and it was touch and go for life,
while the doctor at first had no hope of saving the arm. But youth, and
time, and a strong constitution pulled him through, and in a couple of
weeks he was strong enough to describe to me how he had fallen in
with the bear.
He had gone, it seemed, not to where I had seen the animal, but up a
branch cañon. At no great distance up he met the beast, making its way
leisurely across the creek, and, in his excitement, he fired both barrels
into the bear's shoulder; and then the same thing happened that had
happened to me--those refilled cartridges had jammed, and there was
nothing for it but to run for his life. Luckily he had badly lamed the
animal, or his chance of escape would have been nil, and, as it was, in
another two hundred yards the bear would have been into him.
Some days after the accident, the first day that I could leave Halley's
bedside, I went out to see if it was possible to get the skin of the bear,
but I found it badly torn, maybe by coyotes, and all that could be got as
trophies were his claws.
There they are now, hanging over the pipe-rack by the fireplace in my
snuggery in dear old England.

IV

AN ADVENTURE IN ITALY
A Fourth-form Boy's Holiday Yarn
Last winter I had a stroke of real good luck. As a rule I'm not one of the
lucky ones; but this time, for once, Fortune smiled on me--as old
Crabtree says, when he twigs some slip in my exercise, but can't be
quite sure that I had borrowed another fellow's, just to see how much
better mine was than his!
It was this way. It was a beastly wet afternoon, and the Head wouldn't
give me leave to go to the village. But I was bound to go, for I wanted
some wire to finish a cage I was making for my dormouse, who was
running loose in my play-box and making everything in an awful mess.
So I slipped out, and, of course, got soaked.
I couldn't go and change when I came back with the wire, as Crabtree
would then have twigged that I'd been out in the rain. So the end of it
was that I caught a chill and had to go into the infirmary. I was awfully
bad for a bit, and went off my head, I suppose--for the mater came and
I didn't know her till I got better, and then she told me that the doctor
had said I must go to Italy for the winter, as my lungs were very weak,
and she was going with me, and we should be there till April or May.
The Head told me he hoped I would take some books with me, and do a
little reading when I was better. You bet I did! The mater packed them,
but they weren't much, the worse for wear when I brought them back to
St. Margaret's again.
The Head also hoped I would use the opportunity to study Italian
antiquities. I did take a look at some, but didn't think much of them.
They took me at Rome to the Tarpeian Rock, but it wouldn't hurt a kid
to be chucked down there, let alone a traitor; and the Coliseum wanted
livening up with Buffalo Bill. The only antiquities I really cared for
were the old corpses and bones of the Capucini, which everybody
knows about, but has not had the luck to see as I did.
But I had a walk round so as to be able to say I'd seen the other things,

and brag about them when they turned up in Virgil or Livy, and set old
Crabtree right when he came a cropper over them, presuming on our
knowing less than he did. There was too much for a fellow to do for
him to waste time over such rot as antiquities. You can always find as
many antiquities as you want