ad made an inclined trench, which came to the surface a few yards from
the protruding tree roots, and when she reached the upper end and put
her head above the crust she saw a man rushing down the mountain
straight toward her with the speed of a falling stone.
The green glint came into the grizzly's eyes, her teeth clashed
together in quick, sharp strokes, like the chattering of a chilled
bather, and she lunged forward and upward to meet the charge. If the
man saw her at all, it was too late to swerve from his course or swing
his staff forward for a weapon. His right ski passed under the bear's
foreleg and he flew headlong over her, hurtled through the air and
crashed through the snow crust a dozen yards beyond her. One of the
skis was broken and torn from his foot, and even if his leg had not
been broken he would have been helpless where he fell.
[Illustration: She Lunged Forward to Meet the Charge.]
Mother Grizzly and the starving cubs broke their fast, and two or three
days later they went away over the frozen snow to the foothills. The
men who went out in search of the missing carrier, and followed his
trail to the fallen pine, brought back the mail pouch and something in
a grain sack. They told me what they found, but it was not a pleasing
tale and it is best that it be not retold.
CHAPTER IX.
BOSTON'S BIG BEAR FIGHT.
A small party of hunters sat by a campfire in a tamarack grove in the
high Sierra. Their guide was William Larkin, Esq., alias "Old Bill," a
man who had lived in the mountains for forty years and learned many
things worth telling about. A new Winchester rifle that was being
cleaned was the immediate provocation of some reminiscent remarks on
the subject of pump-guns.
"We old mossbacks are slow to see anything good in new contraptions,"
said Mr. Larkin, after begging a Turkish cigarette from the Dude and
lighting it with the Dude's patent pocket lamp, "but I'm just beginning
to get it socked home into my feeble old intellect that things ain't
naturally no account just because I never seen 'em afore. I stuck to
it for a good many years that an old muzzle-loading rifle was the best
shooting tool that ever was or ever could be made, but an old she-bear
with one of my bullets through her lungs taught me different by clawing
all the clothes and half the meat off my back. I'm learning' slowly,
and I ain't too old to learn some more. If I live long enough I'll
know consid'able y
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