it is a pity, as you say. What shall--"

He stopped abruptly, for a large boulder, or mass of rock, against which
he leaned, gave way under him, made a sudden lurch forward and then
stuck fast.

"Ha! a dangerous support," said Hake, starting back; "but, hist! suppose
we shove it down on the bear?"

"A good thought," replied Heika, "if we can move the mass, which seems
doubtful; but let us try. Something may be gained by trying--nothing
lost."

The boulder, which had been so balanced on the edge of the steep hill
that a gentle pressure moved it, was a mass of rock weighing several
tons, the moving of which would have been a hopeless task for twenty men
to attempt, but it stood balanced on the extreme edge of the turn of the
hill, and the little slip it had just made rendered its position still
more critical; so that, when the young men lay down with their backs
against a rock, placed their feet upon it and pushed with all their
might, it slowly yielded, toppled over, and rolled with a tremendous
surge through a copse which lay immediately below it.

The brothers leaped up and gazed in breathless eagerness to observe the
result. The bear, hearing the crash, looked up with as much surprise as
the visage of that stupid creature is capable of expressing. The thing
was so suddenly done that the bear seemed to have no time to form an
opinion or get alarmed, for it stood perfectly still, while the boulder,
bounding from the copse, went crashing down the hill, cutting a clear
path wherever it touched, attaining terrific velocity, and drawing an
immense amount of debris after it. The direction it took happened to be
not quite straight for the animal, whose snout it passed within six or
eight feet--causing him to shrink back and growl--as it rushed smoking
onward over the level bit of sward beneath, through the mass of willows
beyond, across the gravelly strand and out to the lake, into which it
plunged and disappeared amid a magnificent spout of foam. But the
avalanche of earth and stones which its mad descent had created did not
let Bruin off so easily. One after another these latter, small and
large, went pattering and dashing against him,--some on his flank, some
on his ribs, and others on his head. He growled of course, yet stood
the fire nobly for a few seconds, but when, at last, a large boulder hit
him fairly on the nose, he gave vent to a squeal which terminated in a
passionate roar as he turned about and ma