Trapper Dan's Mammoth, Part Ii

II. Through long hills and dense forest, Slocumb’s dogs pulled the sleigh. Faint traces of Red Billing’s trail guided Dan along the way. He found the frozen Indian, torn apart by many scavengers. He said then a silent prayer, since he couldn’t bury him in frozen dirt. Another day of searching long, and by a stream he found, at last, a small gap in a long ridge, he stood before the small pass. It was a very narrow route, quite easy for a man to miss, shrouded by a forest of spruce and the weight of clinging mists. He worked through the route slowly, moving the dogs around boulders. Into a long and narrow valley, Dan and his huskies soldiered. The valley seemed like any other, as he moved slowly through the glades, with only the sound of the runners breaking the silence in any way. He came into a meadowed spot, on the south side of a ledge. One hundred feet it fell away, to a churning river that leapt its bed. As he looked down a cracking sound arose from the woods' far side. Then a piercing wail erupted loud, echoing both far and wide. A massive red-brown head emerged, then a body impossible large! Huge tusks spiraled towards him, and the great beast launched a charge. Dan froze in place, not believing that an elephant could live in snow. No wait—a mammoth! That was what stood faced before him as a foe. Dan grabbed his trusty Winchester and dove away from the sled. The mammoth speared it swiftly, and both the dogs and sled lifted. With a toss of its huge head, dogs and sled flew off the ledge. Enraged, Dan let go with him gun, seven rounds in the beast’s head. But then to his great horror, the mammoth turned to him. Bloodied, but not badly hurt, with a trumpet, it came charging… CONCLUDES IN PART III.