managed to exclaim, though he would better have husbanded his breath to
better purpose.

The elk was not a bit accommodating. Perhaps the animal understood that
so long as it kept Bluff in rapid motion the human enemy could not find
a chance to use that fire-stick again, that shot out such burning
missiles. At any rate, it persevered, and poor Bluff's tongue fairly
hung out with fatigue.

In desperation, he was about to turn around, trusting to luck to get in
a shot that would put an end to this awful chase in a circle, when the
elk tripped and fell.

"Now!" gasped Bluff.

You would have thought he must have leveled his gun and fired. Jerry
or Frank would, in all probability, have done that very thing. But
Bluff seemed to go back to the first law of Nature, which is
self-preservation.

He dropped his gun, and seizing a limb that happened to be within reach,
climbed into the tree with the agility of a monkey. Fear spurred him on
to do his best work just then.

"Don't you wish you could?" he shouted derisively down at the elk, which
was jumping up, and making all manner of threatening movements with its
antlered head, much after the fashion of an enraged goat, Bluff thought.

He was safe enough, but somehow Bluff did not like the idea of having to
wait in the tree until his chums, drawn by his calls, came to the