Piute and I'll take turns watching with Wolf."

Mescal went silently into her tent.

The sheep quieted down and made no further disturbance that night. The
dawn broke gray, with a cold north wind. Dun-colored clouds rolled up,
hiding the tips of the crags on the upper range, and a flurry of snow
whitened the cedars. After breakfast Jack tried to get Wolf to take the
track of the grizzly, but the scent had cooled.

Next day Mescal drove the sheep eastward toward the crags, and about
the middle of the afternoon reached the edge of the slope. Grass grew
luxuriantly and it was easy to keep the sheep in. Moreover, that part of
the forest had fewer trees, and scarcely any sage or thickets, so that
the lambs were safer, barring danger which might lurk in the seamed and
cracked cliffs overshadowing the open grassy plots. Piute's task at the
moment was to drag dead coyotes to the rim, near at hand, and throw them
over. Mescal rested on a stone, and Wolf reclined at her feet.

Jack presently found a fresh deer track, and trailed it into the cedars,
then up the slope to where the huge rocks massed.

Suddenly a cry from Mescal halted him; another, a piercing scream of
mortal fright, sent him flying down the slope. He bounded out of the
cedars into the open.

The white, well-bunched flock had spread, and streams of jumping sheep
fled frantically from an enormous silver-backed bear.

As the bear struck right and left, a brute-engine of destruction, Jack
sent a bullet into him at long range. Stung, the grizzly whirled, bit at
his side, and then reared with a roar of fury.

But he did not see Jack. He dropped down and launched his huge bulk
for Mescal. The blood rushed back to Jack's heart, and his empty veins
seemed to freeze.

The grizzly hurdled the streams of sheep. Terror for Mescal dominated
Jack; if he had possessed wings he could not have flown quickly enough
to head the bear. Checking himself with a suddenness that fetched him
to his knees, he levelled the rifle. It waved as if it were a stick of
willow. The bead-sight described a blurred curve round the bear. Yet he
shot--in vain--again--in vain.

Above the bleat of sheep and trample of many hoofs rang out Mescal's
cry, despairing.

She had turned, her hands over her breast. Wolf spread his legs before
her and crouched to spring, mane erect, jaws wide.

By some lightning flash of memory, August Naab's words steadied Jack's
shaken nerves. He aimed low and ahead o