d blow
laid it low, with just enough life left to kick.

Black Bruin seized the prize by the head and began dragging it into the
bushes. But he had not gone far when the heifer was upon him like a
whirlwind. He aimed a blow at her head which deprived her of one horn,
but this did not stop her charge. She caught him fairly in the chest
and sent him sprawling.

Her remaining horn ploughed a deep wound in his shoulder and the force
of the contact knocked the breath out of him, but it also aroused his
fighting blood and put him upon his guard.

When the heifer came for him the second time, he ripped open her nose
and eluded her charge, but in no way dampened her fighting ardor.

Ordinarily she would have fled from the bear like the wind, but her
maternal affection had been aroused and wounded and no matter how timid
the wild mother, it will usually fight desperately when its young are
assailed.

Now that the bear was upon his guard, the heifer was hardly a match for
him, for he could usually elude her charges and punish her sorely at
each rush; but one thing was certain: It would be no easy matter to
carry off the dead calf, and carry on such a fight as this at the same
time.

In five minutes the cow was covered with blood and her hide had been
deeply lacerated in many places, while Black Bruin still had but one
wound, that in his shoulder.

Little by little the heifer's frenzy was worn out, until at last she
retired to a distance and pawed the ground and bellowed. But when
Black Bruin sought to carry off the calf, she was back again fighting
every inch of the ground and often causing him to abandon the carcass
for a time.

When she stood over the dead calf, licking the blood from its wounds
and caressing and nosing it, trying in her dumb way to bring it back to
life, she was a pathetic picture of wild motherhood, fighting and ready
to fight to the end if need be for its offspring.

Finally toward night she seemed to understand that the calf was dead
and no longer of value to her, so, after driving Black Bruin far from
the spot, she abandoned the fight and left him conqueror and in full
possession of the field.

When he had made sure that she had returned to the pasture, he dragged
the calf far up the mountainside into his fastness and gorged upon it
as long as it lasted.

As the pasture in which Black Bruin had committed his depredation was a
mile from the settler's house and not often visited except to