In The Carquinez Woods | Page 4

then," she said curtly.
"Not before a lady," responded the other. There was another laugh from
the men, the spurs jingled again, the three torches reappeared from
behind the tree, and then passed away in the darkness.
For a time silence and immutability possessed the woods; the great
trunks loomed upwards, their fallen brothers stretched their slow length
into obscurity. The sound of breathing again became audible; the shape
reappeared in the aisle, and recommenced its mystic dance. Presently it
was lost in the shadow of the largest tree, and to the sound of breathing
succeeded a grating and scratching of bark. Suddenly, as if riven by
lightning, a flash broke from the center of the tree- trunk, lit up the
woods, and a sharp report rang through it. After a pause the jingling of
spurs and the dancing of torches were revived from the distance.
"Hallo?"
No answer.

"Who fired that shot?"
But there was no reply. A slight veil of smoke passed away to the right,
there was the spice of gunpowder in the air, but nothing more.
The torches came forward again, but this time it could be seen they
were held in the hands of two men and a woman. The woman's hands
were tied at the wrist to the horse-hair reins of her mule, while a riata,
passed around her waist and under the mule's girth, was held by one of
the men, who were both armed with rifles and revolvers. Their
frightened horses curveted, and it was with difficulty they could be
made to advance.
"Ho! stranger, what are you shooting at?"
The woman laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Look yonder at the
roots of the tree. You're a d--d smart man for a sheriff, ain't you?"
The man uttered an exclamation and spurred his horse forward, but the
animal reared in terror. He then sprang to the ground and approached
the tree. The shape lay there, a scarcely distinguishable bulk.
"A grizzly, by the living Jingo! Shot through the heart."
It was true. The strange shape lit up by the flaring torches seemed more
vague, unearthly, and awkward in its dying throes, yet the small shut
eyes, the feeble nose, the ponderous shoulders, and half-human foot
armed with powerful claws were unmistakable. The men turned by a
common impulse and peered into the remote recesses of the wood
again.
"Hi, Mister! come and pick up your game. Hallo there!"
The challenge fell unheeded on the empty woods.
"And yet," said he whom the woman had called the sheriff, "he can't be
far off. It was a close shot, and the bear hez dropped in his tracks. Why,
wot's this sticking in his claws?"

The two men bent over the animal. "Why, it's sugar, brown sugar--
look!" There was no mistake. The huge beast's fore paws and muzzle
were streaked with the unromantic household provision, and
heightened the absurd contrast of its incongruous members. The
woman, apparently indifferent, had taken that opportunity to partly free
one of her wrists.
"If we hadn't been cavorting round this yer spot for the last half hour,
I'd swear there was a shanty not a hundred yards away," said the
sheriff.
The other man, without replying, remounted his horse instantly.
"If there is, and it's inhabited by a gentleman that kin make centre shots
like that in the dark, and don't care to explain how, I reckon I won't
disturb him."
The sheriff was apparently of the same opinion, for he followed his
companion's example, and once more led the way. The spurs tinkled,
the torches danced, and the cavalcade slowly reentered the gloom. In
another moment it had disappeared.
The wood sank again into repose, this time disturbed by neither shape
nor sound. What lower forms of life might have crept close to its roots
were hidden in the ferns, or passed with deadened tread over the
bark-strewn floor. Towards morning a coolness like dew fell from
above, with here and there a dropping twig or nut, or the crepitant
awakening and stretching-out of cramped and weary branches. Later a
dull, lurid dawn, not unlike the last evening's sunset, filled the aisles.
This faded again, and a clear gray light, in which every object stood out
in sharp distinctness, took its place. Morning was waiting outside in all
its brilliant, youthful coloring, but only entered as the matured and
sobered day.
Seen in that stronger light, the monstrous tree near which the dead bear
lay revealed its age in its denuded and scarred trunk, and showed in its
base a deep cavity, a foot or two from the ground, partly hidden by
hanging strips of bark which had fallen across it. Suddenly one of these

strips was pushed aside, and a young man leaped lightly down.
But for the rifle