ang stand almost straight up.

Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat go lumbering
across an opening on the slope.

"It's a grizzly! He'll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!" cried Bo, with
intense excitement.

"Bo! That bear is running down! We--we must get--out of his road,"
panted Helen, in breathless alarm.

"Dale hasn't had time to be close.... Oh, I wish he'd come! I don't know
what to do."

"Ride back. At least wait for him."

Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and following that
came a loud growl and crashings in the brush. These sounds appeared to
be not far up the slope.

"Nell! Do you hear? Pedro's fighting the bear," burst out Bo. Her face
paled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. "The bear 'll kill him!"

"Oh, that would be dreadful!" replied Helen, in distress. "But what on
earth can we do?"

"HEL-LO, DALE!" called Bo, at the highest pitch of her piercing voice.

No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones, another
growl from the slope told Helen that the hound had brought the bear to
bay.

"Nell, I'm going up," said Bo, deliberately.

"No-no! Are you mad?" returned Helen.

"The bear will kill Pedro."

"He might kill you."

"You ride that way and yell for Dale," rejoined Bo.

"What will--you do?" gasped Helen.

"I'll shoot at the bear--scare him off. If he chases me he can't catch
me coming downhill. Dale said that."

"You're crazy!" cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope, searching for
open ground. Then she pulled the rifle from its sheath.

But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the mustang, and he,
wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his heels. What Helen would have
done then she never knew, but the fact was that her horse bolted after
the mustang. In an instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the gold
and green of the forest slope. Helen's mount climbed on a run, snorting
and heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to come out into a
narrow, long opening extending lengthwise up the slope.

A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her horse. She
saw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast leaped as a cat out of
the woods. It was a bear of enormous size. Helen's heart stopped--her
tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. The bear turned. His mouth was
open, red and dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terrible
bawl. Helen's every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged high and
sidewise