Opponents quickly met halfway each other. When the distance between them was no more than one and a half meters, the biped animal laid down the ice shell into a bear. The blow had in the left eye. The bear sat down, raised a howl from pain and began paws to rub a muzzle.
But at the same moment, увидав the remained eye that the opponent made a jump, a bear, overcoming pain and falteringly growling, again rose in all the growth in a defensive pose. Also the biped animal stopped. Several minutes they were motionless. Then the biped animal slowly began to come from the gone blind eye of a bear. The bear began to move ahead in the same direction, around. So they passed two circles as fighters before a resolute fight.
I expected that they will fall arms of each other, but left differently.
At the beginning of the third circle the biped animal appeared near the goat lying on ice. With extraordinary speed he suddenly seized a goat, clamped a goat ear in strong teeth and with dexterity of a cat began to climb up ice ledges with the production.
Bear, having forgotten about heavy wounds, with the doubled roar rushed after the enemy who is carrying away a tasty breakfast. But the thief climbed up already almost four meters, and the bear in powerless rage scratched an abrupt ice slope.
I was delighted with courage, dexterity and resourcefulness of a biped animal – whether these qualities made him the tsar of the nature? – and already thought of how to me to avoid meetings with a giant. Suddenly shout of animal despair woke a mountain echo, and I saw how the biped animal together with a goat and the broken-off block flies down. With bump the body of a biped animal fell, the block pressed down his leg, and the bear with a victorious roar rushed on the victim. The biped animal was not given yet and, lying on a back, tried to reject fists paws of a bear with the huge shown teeth.
But situation it was almost hopeless. Here the bear broke skin from a brush of the right hand, here started sharp claws in the left shoulder… and the biped animal who just showed bravery miracles screamed with fear and pain as only animals can shout.
One minute I threw up a rifle, clung in the head of a bear and, risking to kill a biped animal, pulled the trigger.
The booming shot swept in mountains, the echo repeated it many times, and at once there came the silence. The bear killed on the spot failed all over on the enemy, having covered it with the huge hulk. Whether he is living, my biped animal?
– I do not remember how I ran away to a hollow. Rushed to a bear and, having grasped him by paws, began to pull. Futile effort. I, the Parisian of the twentieth century, possessed powerful weapon which strikes to death, but too weak hands which got used to deal with books, but not with carcasses of bears. I managed to release the head of unfortunate only. He was living and did not even faint. And he looked at me brilliant and blue as the sky, eyes.
My thunderous shot which at once laid a bear, my look, extraordinary for a biped animal – all this had to is strong to blow his mind. But at the same time, I am not mistaken, he understood the main thing: that I am a biped animal, come to the rescue him too. And in his look I read something similar to gratitude. Gratitude of the person to the person. The feeling of gratitude is also familiar to animals. But in his look there was something bigger. Animals so do not look. Yes, it was the person. The wild person, the unknown, the died-out primitive white race, but people.
