But the breath in which the wolf had stayed the charge had given Ben his chance.  With a swift motion of his arm he had projected the single rifle shell into the chamber of the weapon.  The stock snapped to his shoulder; and his keen, glittering eyes sought the sights.

XXVIII

Few wilderness adventures offer a more stern test to human nerves than the frightful rush of a maddened grizzly.  It typifies all that is primal and savage in the wild:  the insane rage that can find relief only in the cruel rending of flesh; the thundering power that no mere mortal strength can withstand.  But Ben was a woodsman.  He had been tried in the fire.  He knew that not only his life, but that of the girl in the cavern depended upon this one shot; and it was wholly characteristic of Wolf Darby that his eye held true and his arm was steady as a vice of iron.

He was aware that he must wait until the bear was almost upon him, in order to be sure to send the bullet home to a vital place.  This alone was a test requiring no small measure of self-control.  The instinct was to fire at once.  In the moonlight it was difficult to see his sights:  his only chance was to enlarge his target to the last, outer limit of safety.  He aimed for the great throat, below the slavering jaw.

His finger pressed back steadily against the trigger.  The slightest flinching, the smallest motion might yet throw off his aim.  The rifle spoke with a roar.

But this wilderness battle was not yet done.  The ball went straight home, down through the throat, mushrooming and plowing on into the neck, inflicting a wound that was bound to be mortal within a few seconds.  The bear recoiled; but the mighty engine of its life was not yet destroyed.  Its incalculable fonts of vitality had not yet run down.

The grizzly bounded forward again.  The ball had evidently missed the vertebrae and spinal column.  His crashing, thunderous roar of pain smothered instantly the reechoing report of the rifle and stifled the instinctive cry that had come to Ben’s lips.  He was a forester; and he had known of old what havoc a mortally wounded bear can wreak in a few seconds of life.  In that strange, vivid instant Ben knew that his own and the girl’s life still hung in the balance, with the beam inclining toward death.

The grizzly was in his death-agony, nothing more; yet in that final convulsion he could rip into shreds the powerful form that opposed him.  Ben knew, with a cold, sure knowledge, that if he failed to slay the beast, it would naturally crawl into its lair for its last breath.  As this dreadful thought flashed home he dropped the empty rifle and seized the axe that leaned against a log of spruce beside the fire.

There was no time at all to search out another shell and load his rifle.  If the shock of the heavy bullet had not slackened the bear’s pace he would not even have had time to seize the axe.  Finally, if the bear had not been all but dead, in his last, threshing agony, Ben’s mortal strength could not have sent home one blow.  As it was they found themselves facing each other over the embers of the fire, well-matched contestants whose stake was life and whose penalty was death.  The grizzly turned his head, caught sight of Ben, identified him as the agent of his agony, and lurched forward.