her.

The next instant was one of drama, of incredible stress and movement.
For all his mortal wounds, the short distance between the bear and the
girl seemed to recede with tragic swiftness. The animal's cries rang
through the silent forest: near and far the wild creatures paused in
their occupations to listen. Virginia also stood her ground. There was
no use to flee; she merely stood straight, her eyes gazing along her
pistol barrel, firing shot after shot into the animal's head. Because
it was an automatic, she was able to send home the loads in rapid
succession.

But they were little, futile things, with never the shocking power to
stop that blasting charge. Her safety still lay in that in which she
had always trusted, the same that had been her fort and her stronghold
in all their past adventures. Bill saw the grizzly change in direction;
his response was instinctive and instantaneous. He came leaping through
the snow as if a great hand had hurled him, all of his muscles
contracting in response to the swift, immutable command of his will.
For all the burden of his snowshoes and the depths of the drifts, his
leap was almost as fast as the grizzly's own. He had but one
realization: that the girl's tender flesh must never know those rending
claws and fangs. He leaped to intercept the rending charge with his own
body.

But his hand had found the shell by now, dropped it into the gun, and as
a last instinctive effort, pulled back the lever that slid the cartridge
into the barrel. There was no time to raise the gun to his shoulder.
He pointed it instinctively toward the gray throat. And the end of the
barrel was against the bear's flesh as he pressed the trigger.

No human eye could follow the lightning events of the next fraction of a
second. All that occurred was over and done in the duration of one
heart-beat,--before the shudder and explosion in the air from the
rifle's report had passed away. One instant, and the three figures
seemed all together; Bill crouched with rifle held pointed in his arms,
Virginia behind him, the grizzly full upon them both. The next, and
Harold stood alone in the snow and the silence,--awed, terrified, and
estranged as if in a dream.

Except for the three forms that lay still, half-buried and concealed in
the drifts, it was as if the adventure never occurred. The spruce trees
stood straight and aloof as ever. The silence stretched unbroken; its
immensity had swallowe