l movement
on a spur far up the side of Snarly. Squinting his eyes he could
distinctly make out something, but whether it were man or beast he could
not be sure. Certainly it moved more as a restless bear whose cub,
doubtless unable to master the climb, whined somewhere below. He turned
this over in his mind.

It was three o'clock when Dale stirred. The sheriff smiled as he watched
Nature gradually remove her bandage from the sleeper, who now, instantly
awake, sprang up in dismay.

"Gawd! What time is it?"

Jess held out his watch.

"I must a-slept eighteen hours," the mountaineer gasped, as though such
a thing were scarcely in the range of possibility.

"An' real glad I am, too, Dale! We ain't lost nothin' by it, an' it's
done you a heap of good. Here's a bite to eat!"

Dale attacked it ravenously, then took a deep breath and stretched.

"I feel like a catamount! Come on, Jess--where'll we hunt?"

"I was jest thinkin'! Whilst you slept, I seen somethin' looked like a
bar up on that-ar spur!"

Dale wheeled and watched the place for several minutes.

"I don't see nothin'," he said, at last.

"'Cause it ain't been over to our side yet, that's why! But it's thar,
all right--or, leastwise, it was thar!"

"Jess," the mountaineer spoke quickly, "last spring I saw him there,
too. Come on! Maybe--but I don't reckon it could be, if you thought it
was a bear!"

"I don't neither; but thar ain't no tellin'! It's 'bout the only place
we _ain't_ been! I'll tie the dawg heah, so's if it is a b'ar he won't
git cut up none!"

After a hard two-hour climb they reached a ledge seeming to run on a
level with the spur, followed it a few hundred feet and, cautiously
parting the branches, looked out. There was still too much foliage to
permit them to see, and they crept nearer; this time coming to the base
of the spur itself. But Jess, who was slightly in advance, drew back and
silently cocked his rifle--an act which any mountaineer would rightfully
interpret as a command for absolute silence. Together, now, they edged
forward.

Barefooted, crawling aimlessly about on his hands and knees, wagging his
head from side to side and mumbling, was Tusk--in truth, enough like a
bear to excuse the sheriff's former uncertainty. He seemed to have no
intimation of the watchers who had, in their surprise, advanced far
enough to be in full view. Indeed, twice he crawled within ten feet of
them, all the while wagging his head in a way tha