Free The Right to Arm Bears by Gordon R. Dickson

Dilbian could have made it. It was not that, so much, that was giving him cold shivers, as the fact that once he had reached an anchor point, he would have to work out along the bare cable some twenty-odd feet before he came to the bridge proper.
    Oh, well, he thought.
    "Hey! Where're you going?" shouted the Bluffer.
    John did not answer. He needed his breath and anyway his destination was obvious. After a little time, he reached the near anchor point, and got his arms over the rough, three-inch cable. He rested for a moment and surveyed the situation. The Bluffer was just below him, staring up and looking foreshortened by the angle of John's vision. So was the ledge. John did not look down into the gorge.
    After a while, he got his breath back and he climbed up with both arms and legs wrapped around the cable, himself on top, and began to inch his way toward the bridge end, floating in an absurdly large amount of space at a remarkable distance from him. It occurred to him, after he had covered about six or eight feet in this fashion, that a real hero in this situation would undoubtedly have got to his feet and tightrope-walked the really rather broad cable to the end of the bridge proper. This, in addition to impressing the watching Hill Bluffer, would have shortened the time of personal suspense considerably.
    John concluded that evidently he was just not the stuff out of which real heroes are made, and continued to inch along.
    Eventually, he reached the bridge, crawled out on it and lay panting for a while, then got up and crossed to the far side of the gorge. The far ledge of the gorge was still the home of somebody dodging a process server. John walked over to the winch, and utilizing a handy rock, managed to knock loose the lock-ratchet.
    The winch roared loose, the cables boomed like gigantic bowstrings; and the far end of the bridge slammed down, raising a temporary cloud of dust through which the Hill Bluffer was shortly to be seen advancing with a look of grim purpose. He stalked past John and entered the bridgekeeper's abode. Without knocking.
    There was a moment of silence; and then sound erupted like a bomb exploding inside the hut.
    John looked hastily around for something to climb up on or inside of, where he would be out of harm's way. He had never seen a pair of Dilbians fight; but it was remarkable how accurately his ears interpreted what was going on inside the hut right now.
    After a little while, abruptly, there was peace. The Hill Bluffer emerged, dabbing with one big hand at a torn ear, but otherwise looking not unsatisfied.
    "What happened?" asked John.
    The Bluffer went over and washed off his ear in a large stone trough that ran along side the shack.
    "Said it was his bridge. Hah!" replied the Bluffer. "Nobody stops the mail. I fixed him." He paused, water dripping from one side of his big head and looked at John. "You did all right, too, Half-Pint."
    "Me?" said John.
    "Climbing up and out across that cable to the bridge. Never thought I'd see a Shorty, even a good one, doing something like that. Actually took a little guts, I'd say. All right. Climb up and let's get going."
    John complied.
    "You didn't kill him?" he asked as they headed off up their original fork of the trail toward the Hollows.
    "Who? Old Winchrope? Just knocked a little sense into him. Hell, there's got to be somebody around here keep the bridge up and in repair. Hang on. It's all downhill from here, and we're late. But it'll be twilight in two hours and I think we can just make Sour Ford by then."
    And the Hill Bluffer, swinging once again into his six-foot, ground-devouring stride, was once more hot on the trail of the Terror.
     

CHAPTER 9
    They made good time.
    As the Bluffer had said, from there on it was all downhill. They descended almost immediately into the treed sections of the mountains, the forest part. The trees among which they now traveled were lofty and thick-topped. All underbrush between them had been killed off