e spur of the moment to fight any number of Grizzlies
of any size, still the continual apprehension, the knowledge that he must
hold himself ready at any moment to fight this young monster, weighed on
his spirits and began to tell on his general health.

[Illustration]

IV

The Roachback's life was one of continual vigilance, always ready to run,
doubling and shifting to avoid the encounter that must mean instant death
to him. Many a time from some hiding-place he watched the great Bear, and
trembled lest the wind should betray him. Several times his very impudence
saved him, and more than once he was nearly cornered in a box-canyon. Once
he escaped only by climbing up a long crack in a cliff, which Wahb's huge
frame could not have entered. But still, in a mad persistence, he kept on
marking the trees farther into the range.

[Illustration]

At last he scented and followed up the sulphur-bath. He did not understand
it at all. It had no appeal to him, but hereabouts were the tracks of the
owner. In a spirit of mischief the Roachback scratched dirt into the
spring, and then seeing the rubbing-tree, he stood sidewise on the rocky
ledge, and was thus able to put his mark fully five feet above that of
Wahb. Then he nervously jumped down, and was running about, defiling the
bath and keeping a sharp lookout, when he heard a noise in the woods
below. Instantly he was all alert. The sound drew near, then the wind
brought the sure proof, and the Roachback, in terror, turned and fled into
the woods.

[Illustration: "THE ROACHBACK FLED INTO THE WOODS."]

[Illustration]

It was Wahb. He had been failing in health of late; his old pains were on
him again, and, as well as his hind leg, had seized his right shoulder,
where were still lodged two rifle-balls. He was feeling very ill, and
crippled with pain. He came up the familiar bank at a jerky limp, and there
caught the odor of the foe; then he saw the track in the mud--his eyes said
the track of a _small_ Bear, but his eyes were dim now, and his nose, his
unerring nose, said, "This is the track of the huge invader." Then he
noticed the tree with his sign on it, and there beyond doubt was the
stranger's mark far above his own. His eyes and nose were agreed on this;
and more, they told him that the foe was close at hand, might at any moment
come.

[Illustration]

Wahb was feeling ill and weak with pain. He was in no mood for a desperate
figh