The roaring of the flame was like a hurricane. A huge pine tree came
crashing down across the pool; it barely missed the man. The splash of
water quenched the blazes for the most part, but it gave off such a
heat that he had to move--a little nearer to the Bear. Another fell at
an angle, killing a coyote, and crossing the first tree. They blazed
fiercely at their junction, and the Bear edged from it a little nearer
the man. Now they were within touching distance. His useless gun was
lying in shallow water near shore, but the man had his knife ready,
ready for self-defense. It was not needed; the fiery power had
proclaimed a peace. Bobbing up and dodging under, keeping a nose in
the air and an eye on his foe, each spent an hour or more. The red
hurricane passed on. The smoke was bad in the woods, but no longer
intolerable, and as the Bear straightened up in the pool to move away
into shallower water and off into the woods, the man got a glimpse of
red blood streaming from the shaggy back and dyeing the pool. The
blood on the trail had not escaped him. He knew that this was the Bear
of Baxter's canon, this was the Gringo Bear, but he did not know that
this was also his old-time Grizzly Jack. He scrambled out of the pond,
on the other side from that taken by the Grizzly, and, hunter and
hunted, they went their diverse ways.



X. THE EDDY


All the west slopes of Tallac were swept by the fire, and Kellyan
moved to a new hut on the east side, where still were green patches;
so did the grouse and the rabbit and the coyote, and so did Grizzly