When all was told and talked over Haught said: "Wal, you can just bet we put up two brown bears an' one black bear, an' thet old Jasper of a silvertip."
How hungry and thirsty and tired I was when we got back to camp! The day had been singularly rich in exciting thrills and sensorial perceptions. I called to the Jap: "I'm starv-ved to death!" And Takahashi, who had many times heard my little boy Loren yell that, grinned all over his dusky face. "Aw, lots good things pretty soon!"
After supper we lounged around a cheerful, crackling camp-fire. The blaze roared in the breeze, the red embers glowed white and opal, the smoke swooped down and curled away into the night shadows. Old Dan, as usual, tried to sit in the fire, and had to be rescued. Buck came to me where I sat with my back to a pine, my feet to the warmth. He was lame to-night, having run all day on that injured leg. The other dogs lay scattered around in range of the heat. Natural indeed was it then, in such an environment, after talking over the auspicious start of our hunt at Dude Creek, that we should drift to the telling of stories.
Sensing this drift I opened the hour of reminiscence and told some of my experiences in the jungle of southern Mexico. Copple immediately topped my stories by more wonderful and hair-raising ones about his own adventures in northern Mexico. These stirred Nielsen to talk about the Seri Indians, and their cannibalistic traits; and from these he drifted to the Yuma Indians. Speaking of their remarkable stature and strength he finally got to the subject of giants of brawn and bone in Norway.
One young Norwegian was eight feet tall and broad in proportion. His employer was a captain of a fishing boat. One time, on the way to their home port, a quarrel arose about money due the young giant, and in his anger he heaved the anchor overboard. That of course halted the boat, and it stayed halted, because the captain and crew could not heave the heavy anchor without the help of their brawny comrade. Finally the money matter was adjusted, and the young giant heaved the anchor without assistance. Nielsen went on to tell that this fisherman of such mighty frame had a beautiful young wife whom he adored. She was not by any means a small or frail girl--rather the contrary--but she appeared diminutive beside her giant husband. One day he returned from a long absence on the sea. When his wife, in her joy, ran into his arms, he gave her such a tremendous hug that he crushed her chest, and she died. In his grief the young husband went insane and did not survive her long.