CHAPTER FOUR

In the edge of the balsam and spruce Langdon and Otto sat smoking their pipes after supper, with the glowing embers of a fire at their feet.  The night air in these higher altitudes of the mountains had grown chilly, and Bruce rose long enough to throw a fresh armful of dry spruce on the coals.  Then he stretched out his long form again, with his head and shoulders bolstered comfortably against the butt of a tree, and for the fiftieth time he chuckled.

“Chuckle an’ be blasted,” growled Langdon.  “I tell you I hit him twice, Bruce—­twice anyway; and I was at a devilish disadvantage!”

“’Specially when ‘e was lookin’ down an’ grinnin’ in your face,” retorted Bruce, who had enjoyed hugely his comrade’s ill luck.  “Jimmy, at that distance you should a’most ha’ killed ’im with a rock!”

“My gun was under me,” explained Langdon for the twentieth time.

“W’ich ain’t just the proper place for a gun to be when yo’r hunting a grizzly,” reminded Bruce.

“The gully was confoundedly steep.  I had to dig in with both feet and my fingers.  If it had been any steeper I would have used my teeth.”

Langdon sat up, knocked the ash out of the bowl of his pipe, and reloaded it with fresh tobacco.

“Bruce, that’s the biggest grizzly in the Rocky Mountains!”

“He’d ‘a’ made a fine rug in your den, Jimmy—­if yo’r gun hadn’t ’appened to ’ave been under you.”

“And I’m going to have him in my den before I finish,” declared Langdon.  “I’ve made up my mind.  We’ll make a permanent camp here.  I’m going to get that grizzly if it takes all summer.  I’d rather have him than any other ten bears in the Firepan Range.  He was a nine-footer if an inch.  His head was as big as a bushel basket, and the hair on his shoulders was four inches long.  I don’t know that I’m sorry I didn’t kill him.  He’s hit, and he’ll surely fight say.  There’ll be a lot of fun in getting him.”

“There will that,” agreed Bruce, “’specially if you meet ’im again during the next week or so, while he’s still sore from the bullets.  Better not have the gun under you then, Jimmy!”

“What do you say to making this a permanent camp?”

“Couldn’t be better.  Plenty of fresh meat, good grazing, and fine water.”  After a moment he added:  “He was hit pretty hard.  He was bleedin’ bad at the summit.”

In the firelight Langdon began cleaning his rifle.

“You think he may clear out—­leave the country?”

Bruce emitted a grunt of disgust.

“Clear out? Run away?  Mebbe he would if he was a black.  But he’s a grizzly, and the boss of this country.  He may fight shy of this valley for a while, but you can bet he ain’t goin’ to emigrate.  The harder you hit a grizzly the madder he gets, an’ if you keep on hittin’ ’im he keeps on gettin’ madder, until he drops dead.  If you want that bear bad enough we can surely get him.”