htly chipped the
flint, so as to sharpen its edge and make sure of its striking fire.

By that time it was long past noon, and the hunter was meditating the
propriety of going to a neighbouring height to view the surrounding
country, when a slight noise attracted his attention. He started,
cocked his gun, glared round in all directions, and held his breath.

The noise was not repeated. Gradually the frown of his brows melted,
the glare of his eyes abated, the tension of his muscles was relaxed,
and his highly-wrought feelings escaped in a long-drawn sigh.

"Pshaw 'twas nothing. No bear in its senses would roam about at such an
hour, considering the row I have been kicking up with hacking and
crashing. Come, I'll go to the top of that crag, and have a look
round."

He put on his coat and belt, stuck his axe and knife into the latter,
shouldered his gun, and went nimbly up the rocky ascent on his left.

Coming out on a clear spot at the crag which had attracted him, he could
see the whole pass beneath him, except the spot where his trap had been
laid. That portion was vexatiously hidden by an intervening clump of
bushes. Next moment he was petrified, so to speak, by the sight of a
grizzly bear sauntering slowly down the pass as if in the enjoyment of
an afternoon stroll.

No power on earth--except, perhaps, a glance from Elsie--could have
unpetrified Ian Macdonald at that moment. He stood in the
half-crouching attitude of one about to spring over the cliff--
absolutely motionless--with eyes, mouth, and nostrils wide open, as if
to afford free egress to his spirit.

Not until the bear had passed slowly out of sight behind the intervening
bushes was he disenchanted. Then, indeed, he leaped up like a startled
deer, turned sharp round, and bounded back the way he had come, with as
much caution and as little noise as was compatible with such vigorous
action.

Before he had retraced his steps ten yards, however, he heard a crash!
Well did he know what had caused it. His heart got into his threat
somehow. Swallowing it with much difficulty, he ran on, but a roar such
as was never uttered by human lungs almost stopped his circulation. A
few seconds brought Ian within view of his trap, and what a sight
presented itself!

A grizzly bear, which seemed to him the hugest, as it certainly was at
that moment the fiercest, that ever roamed the Rocky Mountains, was
struggling furiously under the weight of the pondero