nd echoes I imagined I heard the
grizzly roar. He was now getting farther along the base of the bluff,
and I saw that he would escape us. My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My
fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last
chance had fled! But Copple's big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his
magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the
base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap
forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had
reloaded. Some of these hit close to our quarry. The old grizzly slowed
up, and looked across, and wagged his huge head.

"My gun's on fire all right," said Copple, grimly, as he loaded still
more rapidly. Carefully he aimed and pulled trigger. The grizzly gave a
spasmodic jerk as if stung and suddenly he made a prodigious leap off a
ledge, down into a patch of brush, where he threshed like a lassoed
elephant.

"Ben, you hit him!" I yelled, excitedly.

"Only made him mad. He's not hurt.... See, he's up again.... Will you
look at that!"

The grizzly appeared to roll out of the brush, and like a huge furry
ball of brown, he bounced down the thicketed slope to an open slide
where he unrolled, and stretched into a run. Copple got two more shots
before he was out of sight.

"Gone!" ejaculated Copple. "An' we never fetched him!... He ain't hurt.
Did you see him pile down an' roll off that slope?... Let's see. I got
twenty-three shots at him. How many had you?"

"I had fifteen."

"Say, it was some fun, wasn't it--smokin' him along there? But we ought
to have fetched the old sheep-killer.... Wonder what's happened to the
other fellows."

We looked about us. Not improbably the exciting moments had been few in
number, yet they seemed long indeed. The Haughts had gotten to the top
of the bluff, and were tearing through the brush toward the point Copple
had designated. They reached it too late.

"Where is he?" yelled Edd.

"Gone!" boomed Copple. "Runnin' down the canyon. Call the dogs an' go
down after him."

When the Haughts came out into the open upon that bench one of the pups
and the spotted hound, Rock, were with them. Old Dan and old Tom were
baying up at the head of the canyon, and Sue could be heard yelping
somewhere else. Bear trails seemingly were abundant near our
whereabouts. Presently the Haughts disappeared at the back of the bench
where the old grizzly had gone down, and evidently they put th