life of every grizzly in the
North could not pay for one jot of risk to hers. Lastly he realized at
the first sight of those glowing, angry eyes, the ears back, and the
stiff hairs on the shoulder that the grizzly was in a fighting mood.

For all the complexity of his thought, his decision did not take an
instant. There was no waiting to offer the sporting opportunity to
Harold. Virginia was not aware of a lapse in time between the instant
that Bill caught sight of the bear and that in which his gun came
leaping to his shoulder. He had full confidence in the hard-hitting
vicious bullet in Harold's thirty-five, and most of all he relied on the
four reserve shots that he supposed lay in the rifle magazine. The
grizzly dies hard: he felt that all four of them would be needed to
arrest the charge that would likely follow his first shot.

He didn't wait for those great muscles to get into action. The animal
was standing broadside to him, his head turned and red eyes watching; if
Bill had his own gun, he would have aimed straight for the space between
the eyes. This is never a sportsman's shot; but for an absolute
marksman, in a moment of crisis, it is the surest shot of all. But he
did not know Harold's gun well enough to trust such a shot. Indeed, he
aimed for the great shoulder, the region of the lungs and heart. The
gun cracked in the silence.

The bullet went straight home, ripping through the lungs, tearing the
great arteries about the heart, shivering even a portion of the heart
itself. And yet the grizzly sprang like a demon through the deep snow,
straight towards him.

It is no easy thing to face a grizzly's charge. The teeth gleam in red
foam, the eyes flash, the great shoulders rock. For all the deep snow
that he bounded through, the beast approached at an unbelievable pace.
He bawled as he came--awful, reverberating sounds that froze the blood
in the veins. If the course had been open, likely he would have been
upon him before Bill could send home another shot. There could only be
one result to such a meeting as this. One blow would strike the life
from Bill's body as the lightning strikes it from a tree. But the snow
impeded the bear, and it seemed to Virginia's horrified eyes that Bill
would have time to empty the magazine. She saw his fingers race as he
worked the lever action of the gun: she saw his eyes lower again to the
sights. The bear seemed almost upon him. And she screamed when sh