he had missed his footing on the bank; but there was a
thumping of heavy feet, a roar that startled even the great Bull, and, like
a huge bounding ball of yellow fur, Mother Grizzly was upon him. Him! the
monarch of the herd, the master of all these plains, what had he to fear?
He bellowed his deep war-cry, and charged to pin the old one to the bank;
but as he bent to tear her with his shining horns, she dealt him a stunning
blow, and before he could recover she was on his shoulders, raking the
flesh from his ribs with sweep after sweep of her terrific claws.

[Illustration]

The Bull roared with rage, and plunged and reared, dragging Mother Grizzly
with him; then, as he hurled heavily off the slope, she let go to save
herself, and the Bull rolled down into the river.

[Illustration]

This was a lucky thing for him, for the Grizzly did not want to follow him
there; so he waded out on the other side, and bellowing with fury and pain,
slunk off to join the herd to which he belonged.

II

[Illustration]

Old Colonel Pickett, the cattle king, was out riding the range. The night
before, he had seen the new moon descending over the white cone of
Pickett's Peak.

"I saw the last moon over Frank's Peak," said he, "and the luck was against
me for a month; now I reckon it's my turn."

Next morning his luck began. A letter came from Washington granting his
request that a post-office be established at his ranch, and contained the
polite inquiry, "What name do you suggest for the new post-office?"

[Illustration]

The Colonel took down his new rifle, a 45-90 repeater. "May as well," he
said; "this is my month"; and he rode up the Graybull to see how the cattle
were doing.

As he passed under the Rimrock Mountain he heard a far-away roaring as of
Bulls fighting, but thought nothing of it till he rounded the point and saw
on the flat below a lot of his cattle pawing the dust and bellowing as they
always do when they smell the blood of one of their number. He soon saw
that the great Bull, "the boss of the bunch," was covered with blood. His
back and sides were torn as by a Mountain-lion, and his head was battered
as by another Bull.

"Grizzly," growled the Colonel, for he knew the mountains. He quickly noted
the general direction of the Bull's back trail, then rode toward a high
bank that offered a view. This was across the gravelly ford of the
Graybull, near the mouth of the Piney. His horse