The
pain must have been acute, for the creature fell on its knees, drove its
nose into the ground, and produced a miniature earthquake with a snort.
Then it sprang up and rushed at its foe. Ian was reloading swiftly for
his life. Vain hope. Men used to breech-loaders can scarce understand
the slow operations of muzzle-loaders. He had only got the powder in,
and was plucking a bullet from his pouch. Another moment and he would
have been down, when crack! crack! went shots on either side of him, and
the bear fell with a ball from Victor in its heart and another from
Rollin in its spine.

Even thus fatally wounded it strove to reach its conquerors, and
continued to show signs of ungovernable fury until its huge life went
out.

Poor Ian stood resting on his gun, and looking at it, the picture of
despair.

"You hit him after all," said Victor, with a look of admiration at his
friend, not on account of the shooting, but of his dauntless courage.
"And of course," he continued, "the grizzly is yours, because you drew
first blood."

Ian did not reply at once, but shook his head gravely.

"If you and Rollin had not been here," he said, "I should have been dead
by this time. No, Vic, no. Do you think I would present Elsie with a
collar thus procured? The bear belongs to you and Rollin, for it seems
to me that both shots have been equally fatal. You shall divide the
claws between you, I will have none of them."

There was bitterness in poor Ian's spirit, for grizzly bears were not to
be fallen in with every day, and it might be that he would never have
another opportunity. Even if he had, what could he do?

"I don't believe I could hit a house if it were running," he remarked
that night at supper. "My only chance will be to wait till the bear is
upon me, shove my gun into his mouth, and pull the trigger when the
muzzle is well down his throat."

"That would be throttling a bear indeed," said Victor, with a laugh, as
he threw a fresh log on the fire. "What say you, Rollin?"

"It vould bu'st de gun," replied the half-breed, whose mind, just then,
was steeped in tobacco smoke. "Bot," he continued, "it vould be worth
vile to try. Possiblement de bu'stin' of de gun in his troat might do
ver vell. It vould give him con--con--vat you call him? De ting vat
leetil chile have?"

"Contrariness," said Victor.

"Contradictiousness," suggested Ian; "they're both good long words,
after your own heart."

"Non, non