Tampico gladly turned over half of the promised dust. That night they
camped together, and, of course, no Bear appeared.

In the morning Lan went back to the canon and found, as expected, that
the Bear had returned and killed the remaining sheep.

The hunter piled the rest of the carcasses in an open place, lightly
sprinkled the Grizzly's trail with some very dry brush, then making a
platform some fifteen feet from the ground in a tree, he rolled up in
his blanket there and slept.

An old Bear will rarely visit a place three nights in succession; a
cunning Bear will avoid a trail that has been changed overnight; a
skilful Bear goes in absolute silence. But Jack was neither old,
cunning, nor skilful. He came for the fourth time to the canon of the
sheep. He followed his old trail straight to the delicious mutton
bones. He found the human trail, but there was something about it that
rather attracted him. He strode along on the dry boughs. "Crack!" went
one; "crack-crack!" went another; and Kellyan arose on the platform
and strained his eyes in the gloom till a dark form moved into the
opening by the bones of the sheep. The hunter's rifle cracked, the
Bear snorted, wheeled into the bushes, and, crashing away, was gone.



IX. FIRE AND WATER


That was Jack's baptism of fire, for the rifle had cut a deep
flesh-wound in his back. Snorting with pain and rage, he tore through