the poor creature's head and
neck--actually eating the bull by piecemeal!

"Oh, horrors!" gasped Helen, sickened by the sight of the blood and the
ferocity of the bear. "Is that a dreadful grizzly? How terrible!"

"It's eating the poor bull alive!" Jennie cried.

Ruth had never ridden out from camp since Dakota Joe's last appearance
without carrying a light rifle in her saddle scabbard. She rode a
regular stockman's saddle and liked the ease and comfort of it.

Now she seized her weapon and cocked It.

"That is not a grizzly, girls!" she exclaimed. "The grizzly is
ordinarily a tame animal beside this fellow. The blackbear is the
meat-eater--and the man-killer, too. I learned all about that in our
first trip out here to the West."

"Quick! Do something for that poor steer!" begged Helen. "Never mind
lecturing about it."

But Ruth had been wasting no time while she talked. She first had to get
her pony to stand She knew it was not gun-shy. It was only the scent and
sight of the bear that excited it.

Once the pony's four feet were firmly set, the girl of the Red Mill, who
was no bad shot, raised her rifle and sighted down the barrel at the
little snarling eyes of Bruin behind his open, red jaws. The bear
crouched on the bull's back and actually roared at the girls who had
come to disturb him at his savage feast.

Ruth's trigger-finger was firm. It was an automatic rifle, and although
it fired a small ball, the girl had drawn a good bead on the bear's
most vulnerable point--the base of his wicked brain! The several bullets
poured into that spot, severing the vertebrae and almost, indeed,
tearing the head from the brute's shoulders!

"Oh, Ruth! You've done for him!" cried Helen, with delight.

"But the poor bull!" murmured Jennie. "See! He can't get out. He's done
for."

"I am afraid they are both done for," returned Ruth. "Take this gun,
Jennie. Let me see if I can rope the bull and help him out."

She swung the puncher's lariat she carried hung from her saddle-bow with
much expertness. She had practised lariat throwing on her previous trips
to the West. But although she was able to encircle the bull's bleeding
head with the noose of the rope, to drag the creature out of the morass
was impossible.

He was sunk in the mire too deeply, and he was too far gone now to help
himself. The bear had rolled off the back of the bull and after a few
faint struggles ceased to live. But Bruin's presence made it very
di