Chapter 263 Black Bear Footprints
The prey was just beside the water in the woods on the other side of the river.
At first Lin Heng thought it was a civet cat.
But upon closer inspection, I found something wrong. This was not white rice.
Instead, it was a rare little civet that was drinking water by a small puddle and had not yet noticed Lin Heng.
This guy looks gray-brown, with vertical black stripes on his back. His body is about half a meter long, and his tail is 30 centimeters long, about the same size as a domestic cat. His mouth is very prominent, like a cone, and his ears are round and short.
Lin Heng was a little excited because this thing had a sachet on its body. The substance it secreted was called civet, which could be used as medicine and had the effects of promoting qi and blood circulation, calming the nerves and relieving pain.
Because its output is lower than that of musk, its market price is even higher, reaching 40 yuan per gram.
After looking at the distance between them, Lin Heng was completely at a loss as to what to do because the distance was too far, more than 300 meters, and there was a river in between. He had no confidence of hitting the target.
After thinking for a while, Lin Heng decided to go up first and find a place to cross the river to set up a noose trap.
Not long after he walked away, he noticed that the little civet cat quickly ran away, as if it had discovered his trail.
Going forward, the mountains on both sides of the river suddenly become gentler, and the river becomes more than ten meters wide, but the water is only thirty or forty centimeters deep, and only a dozen centimeters deep in shallow places.
There were a lot of salmon, or mullets, migrating upstream to spawn, and you could see more than a dozen at a glance.
“This is a great place to catch fish.”
Lin Heng sighed. He felt that if he were a black bear, he would definitely come to this place to eat fish. It would be unjust not to eat such easy fish.
He walked to the river and took a look. In addition to the smelt, there were also quite a few ground tigers and stream groupers, and sometimes you could also see two mandarin fish.
After walking along the river for several hundred meters, Lin Heng accidentally found a crystal stone half-inserted in the water. It was hexagonal in shape, completely transparent, with several red silk threads in the middle.
"Rutile, you're lucky."
Lin Heng couldn't help but be surprised when he saw this thing. This is a mineral containing titanium dioxide, a relatively rare and beautiful stone that can be sold for a lot of money.
He had read some books on minerals a few days ago and happened to recognize this kind of ore.
"Let's go and take a look inside the forest."
Lin Heng glanced at Xiong Ba, then turned and went back into the forest. His elder brother should have been up there for a long time.
If he finds any animal tracks here, he wants to build a shelter nearby, the only trouble is that there are many places along the river where the red dates can’t get up.
There were many wild walnut trees on the edge of the forest. Lin Heng took a look and continued to walk up. Just when he went three or four hundred meters deep into the forest, a red squirrel suddenly appeared in his sight and looked at him vigilantly.
Lin Heng took a glance and didn't hit it. It was a little small and he didn't want to attack it at all, although squirrel meat was delicious.
After walking for more than ten minutes, Xiongba found some fresh wild boar feces. Lin Heng walked over and judged that it must have been excreted in the last two days.
"Brother, come here quickly, there is a big pheasant over here."
Lin Heng was analyzing feces when his elder brother quickly walked down from above and whispered.
"Then you fight it yourself." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"My gun makes too much noise. I think all the prey will run away after I fire. It's only noon now. I think there are a lot of good things here. It would be a pity to scare them away."
Lin Yue shook his head and said.
"Then leave it to me."
Lin Heng grinned, opened the bow bag, took out the bow, pulled out another hunting arrow and walked up.
After walking about 300 meters, Lin Heng saw the pheasant his elder brother had mentioned, under a bush on a rock wall about 30 meters away. This guy had extremely colorful feathers, red wings, a blue-gray belly, a white circle on his neck, and a blue-gray head.
It turned the soil for a while and found a earthworm and ate it. Then it looked around vigilantly, and when it saw no danger, it continued to dig the soil to look for insects.
While it was lowering its head, Lin Heng stepped out from behind the tree, drew his bow and shot the arrow in one go.
With a whoosh, a sharp arrow arrived almost instantly and pierced through his chest, and the arrowhead was directly embedded in the mud.
The whole process from drawing the bow to hitting the target takes no more than three seconds. After daily practice, Lin Heng's archery skills have reached perfection. One second is enough for aiming at this distance.
"quack!!"
The pheasant screamed twice, kicked its legs and flapped its wings, but soon it became motionless.
“Precise enough!”
Lin Yue gave a thumbs up. He was stunned by Lin Heng's archery accuracy. The pheasant was dead before he could react.
“Ouch~~”
Xiongba was also very fast and came over with the pheasant in his mouth in a few seconds.
"It's over three pounds, so it's pretty big."
Lin Hengti said with a smile.
Lin Yue looked at Lin Heng and said, "Are we going to eat here or go back for lunch?"
Lin Heng looked at his watch and said, "Let's get some fish to eat here, and then go back in the evening. In the afternoon, let's see if there are any signs of bears."
It's only half past eleven, there's no rush.
Lin Yue nodded and said, "Sure. I saw a lot of animal traces along the way today, including wild boar and muntjac feces, but no bear traces."
"I saw a small civet, but unfortunately I couldn't kill it."
Lin Heng said this and continued to swim upstream, looking for traces of prey in the woods in this area.
After walking up for a kilometer, we only found the feces of wild boars and takins, and the only living creatures we saw were a few birds. Although there were many prey in those days, the mountains were also huge, and if we were unlucky, we might not find any in half a month.
There was no good discovery of Chinese medicinal materials, just two wild lilies, which Lin Heng was too lazy to dig.
"Let's eat." Lin Heng shook his head helplessly. Even Xiongba couldn't find anything good.
"I'll make a fire and you go catch fish." Lin Yue said with a smile.
Lin Heng nodded and took Xiongba to the river to catch plum fish. He fed Xiongba first before he caught four.
This time there was no perilla. We just sprinkled some salt on it and simply grilled it for two people to eat. It tasted pretty good.
"Let's go, let's go up a little further and take a look."
Lin Heng said with a smile.
After walking up a few hundred meters, a purple peach blossom forest appeared on the mountain on the opposite bank, and the fragrance drifted over along the river breeze.
“There are so many peach trees.”
Lin Heng was amazed at how beautiful the scenery was. On the steep hillside opposite, fifty or sixty peach trees formed a forest.
The environment is really beautiful with fresh grass and colorful fallen flowers. The environment in this mountain is so good.
“Hey, bro, there are morels here.”
Lin Heng was admiring it when he suddenly heard his elder brother calling from the front.
"Here I come."
Lin Heng ran over quickly.
The place where his elder brother discovered the morels was a mixed forest with a lot of green grass growing on the ground, and the morels grew among the grass.
"Black-veined morels, good stuff."
Lin Heng picked one and said with a smile.
"It's so rare to find such a thing in this place." Lin Yue said as he picked it up.
"Indeed, it is unlikely."
Lin Heng also nodded. The temperature here at night was very low.
The two of them picked mushrooms in the woods for a while. Lin Heng picked up about 30 or 40 morels, which added up to nearly two kilograms. His elder brother also picked up more than one kilogram, which was a good harvest.
“Woof woof~~”
At this time, the Xiongba in front suddenly made a cry. Lin Heng looked up and saw that it was circling in place, as if it had discovered something.
"Let's go and take a look."
Lin Heng said this and walked forward with his elder brother. There were no morels in this place anymore.
They thought that Xiongba had discovered new fungi, but when they came over and took a look, they were stunned.
Lin Heng's eyes widened: "Oh my God... you found it already?"
"It's really effortless. I encountered it so easily." Lin Yue felt it was a little unreal.
There was nothing on the ground but the traces of the bear they had been looking for so hard.
There was a huge bear footprint on the soft mud, which was four or five centimeters deep and larger than Lin Heng's two palms put together.
"It's normal when you think about it. Fish migrate here every year, so there must be bears coming here." Lin Heng said with a smile.
Lin Yue nodded and asked, "Shall we start looking now?"
The footprints are very fresh, definitely from the last one or two days.
"Let's see first, is your gun loaded?"
Lin Heng thought for a moment and said.
"I'll go now." Lin Yue loaded a buckshot bullet with a large lead bullet inside. The special lead bullet required too high a precision and he was not sure yet.
Lin Heng also took out his compound bow and followed the footprints to search in the direction of the forest. He first walked a few hundred meters up the mountain, and then headed upstream. The bear's tracks were a bit strange.
After half an hour of searching without seeing any sign of the bear, Lin Heng stopped and said, "We don't have enough time today. Let's go back and find a way to move the shelter here."
It's already past three o'clock, and it will be difficult to go back if we go up.
"Then go back and find the trail. It will be the same if you come back tomorrow."
Lin Yue nodded and said.
Lin Heng said: "Get up at four o'clock tomorrow morning and come here in the dark. It is very likely that the bears will be foraging in the morning."
After making the decision, the two of them headed back. On the way back, Lin Heng set up noose traps on some animal trails, while Lin Yue cut a lot of grass and leaves to go back and feed the red dates with.
"Fuck, the water is so cold."
When they arrived at the place where the little civet was found, Lin Heng took off his pants and walked towards the river. The deepest water was up to his waist. He felt that his brother was so cold that he had lost consciousness.
After crossing the river, he quickly put on his pants, went to the woods where civets roamed and set up a few noose traps, then took off his pants and walked back to the other side of the river.
If the little civet cat wasn't valuable, he really wouldn't want to torture himself by crossing the river like this.
But fortunately I kept walking and soon I didn’t feel cold anymore.
The two walked back along the same route they had come, and by the way, they looked for any easy places to walk and tried to find a way to bring up the red dates.
But the two of them helplessly discovered that the mountain walls on both sides were too steep and Hongzao was doomed to be unable to climb up.
"There's no other way. I'll just have to put it down there."
Lin Heng shook his head.
Lin Yue was also helpless: "This is the only way, but if we hunt a black bear tomorrow, we can just go back and there's no need to worry."
Lin Heng did not hold out hope for this. Although he had found footprints, he might not be able to find the black bear because the animal's range of activity was too large.
The two of them quickened their pace and returned to the shelter at 4:10, but the situation here surprised them both.
"Where are the red dates?" Lin Yue was shocked. The red dates tied to the tree were gone.
“Woof woof woof~~~”
Soon, Xiongba let out a roar and ran downstream.
"You horse thief, you bastard!"
Following Xiongba's shout, Lin Heng also saw the two people below. Hongzao had been pulled away and walked a long way away.
When the two men who stole the horse in front saw Lin Heng and Lin Yue, they panicked and whipped Hongzao hard.
"hiss!!!"
Hearing Lin Heng's voice, Hongzao also let out a hissing sound.
"Who told you to steal our horse? If you don't stop we'll shoot! Damn it!"
Lin Yue rushed forward while taking the gun in his hand.
Hearing this, the two men stopped and one of the old men said viciously: "Who said this horse is yours? I said it is mine."
Lin Heng came over, took out the bow and arrow, and cursed: "I bought it from someone, and I have witnesses and evidence. You want to go to the police station and go to jail, right? Put it down quickly if you know what's good for you."
He really didn't expect that someone would come to this place and shamelessly steal his horse. He really had no qualities of a hunter.
One of the two men was an old man in his 50s or 60s holding a homemade hunting rifle, and the other was a man in his 30s holding a Mongolian bow. Seeing Lin Heng and Lin Yue take out their weapons, both of them panicked. They didn't recognize the compound bow in Lin Heng's hand, but they couldn't fail to recognize the double-barreled hunting rifle in Lin Yue's hand.
The shotgun is far inferior to the double-barreled shotgun in terms of range, power, and reloading speed.
"I don't care about you. The horse is mine as long as I have it in my hand." The middle-aged man said arrogantly, making it clear that he didn't want to return it.
Lin Heng sneered: "Do you believe that I can beat you to death here and no one will know? No one else can see you in this desolate mountain. If I bury you somewhere, no one will ever know how you died."
"You dare?" the old man said in a timid tone.
"Just take another step and you'll know." Lin Heng smiled and spread his hands.
The two men were silent for a while. The middle-aged man glanced at Lin Heng and softened his tone: "We picked up this horse in the wild. Do you want to give us ten dollars as a reward?"
When they first saw the horse, they didn't intend to steal it. They wandered around for more than half an hour to make sure no one was around before crossing the river to steal it. If they had known earlier, they should have just taken the horse and ran away.
Lin Yue said angrily: "You must be crazy about money."
"If you don't give it to me, I'll kill the horse." The middle-aged man said shamelessly.
Lin Heng glanced at him. The man was holding a porcupine in his hand, which was a rare prey.
An idea suddenly struck him, and he said, "Well, you are also good at archery, let's have a competition. If you are better than me, I will give you the horse. If you are not as good as me, not only must you give me the horse, but also the porcupine in your hand."
He said this because he had absolute confidence in himself and his compound bow. If he couldn't beat his opponent with a modern compound bow, he could really go home and herd cattle and never hunt again.
Also, he didn't really want to kill the two men, so he just wanted to find an excuse to get the horse back.
The middle-aged man immediately became interested when he heard this. He was extremely confident in his archery skills. His ancestors all hunted with bows and arrows, and he had been practicing this since he was a child.
"That's what you said. If I lose, you give the horse to me?" the middle-aged man looked at him and asked.
Lin Heng nodded: "A grown man is a man of his word. He sticks to his word."
"Come on, I'm not afraid of you." The middle-aged man smiled and nodded. A young boy actually dared to compete with him in archery. He really didn't know his place.
Lin Heng just laughed at him for being uneducated and not knowing the horror of modern compound bows.
(End of this chapter)
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