ht. Hey, Skookum, catch
hold and let's flop him over."

Having satisfied themselves that the bear was dead, the miner and the
guide, with the aid of the Indians, moved the enormous mass which, with
the Indian's blow, had slumped down upon its hindquarters. With the
greatest difficulty they succeeded in straightening it out. The Indian dog
had been squeezed into a shapeless mass, and, ascertaining this, the
Indian gave it no further attention for the time being.

"Mighty good thing you had a softnosed bullet in that rifle," said
Skookum, pointing to the gaping wound in the breast of the bear. "That
spread, and did the business right away. A steel jacketed bullet would
have gone straight through and would not have done so much harm. Then you
might have been where the dog was."

Jack, who had been seized with a sort of buck fever after he realized what
he had shot, was trembling with excitement as he received the almost
envious congratulations of his friends.

"Begorra, we'll courtmartial you and drop ye from the Patrol," said
Gerald, "if ye insist grabbing all the glory for yourself this way. Why
don't you let us know when you are going out after adventures?"

"Yes, this is the second time that you have gone knight-erranting by your
lone," said Dick, "and I can see nothing for it. If this Patrol of Boy
Scouts is to get any chance to make a reputation it will have to put Mr.
Jack Blake on a leash, and tie him to our wrists when we lie down to
sleep."

"Weel, if that big bear or whatever it is, is really dead, ye've certainly
made a better job of it than ye did with Monkey," exclaimed Don, and, with
the laugh that followed, poor Jack felt that the ridiculousness of that
episode on the steamer had been practically wiped out.

Swiftwater and Skookum measured the huge brown carcass that lay stretched
on the sand before them, and found it to be nearly ten feet from tip to
tip. They guessed its weight to be about eight hundred pounds.

"That's about the limit," said Skookum, "tho' I did hear of a skin once
that measured thirteen feet."

"Well, Jack," said Swiftwater, "you've killed the largest meat-eating
critter, in the world--carnivorous I think ye call it. There's none bigger
than the big brown bear of Alaska. Some say he isn't so fierce as the
grizzly, but he is nearly twice as big, and there's certain seasons that
he'll fight at the drop of the hat, as the sayin' goes. I never see one so
far from the coast before.