traversed him from stem, to stern, and spouting his life blood in
quarts he had gone half a mile before his amazing vitality ebbed clean
away and left him a huge heap of carrion.

It is the tradition of the mountain that the ursine shepherd was none
other than Old Clubfoot, and it is not worth while to dispute with the
faith of a man who follows sheep in the solitudes.

* * * * *

Like Phra the Phoenician, Old Clubfoot could not stay dead, and when
there was trouble afoot in the world, with tumult and fighting, no
grave was deep enough, no tomb massive enough to hold him. His next
recrudescence was in Old Tuolumne, where he forgot former experiences
with steel traps and set his foot into the jaws of one placed in his
way by vindictive cattlemen. Attached to the chain of the trap was a
heavy pine chunk, and Old Clubfoot dragged the clog for many miles,
leaving through the brush a trail easily followed, and lay down to rest
in a thicket growing among a huddle of rocks.

Hot upon the trail came two hunters, Wesley Wood and a Sclavonian whose
name was something like Sakarovitch, and had been simplified to Joe
Screech. Wood was certain that the bear had stopped in the thicket,
which was almost on the verge of one of the walls of Hetch-Hetchy
Valley, a replica of Yosemite on half scale, and he was too old a hand
at the game to follow the trail in. One experience with a bear in the
brush is enough to teach the greatest fool in the world, if he
survives, that wild animals do not lie down to rest without taking
precautions against surprise by possible pursuers. They do not stop
short in their tracks and go to sleep where any chance comer may walk