“Don’t worry.  I could hear a squirrel coming over this ground,” replied R.C.

Then I went on, not exactly at ease in mind, but stirred and thrilled to the keen charged atmosphere.  I had to go around under the base of a rocky ledge, over rough ground.  Presently I dropped into a bear trail, well trodden.  I followed it to a corner of cliff where it went down.  Then I kept on over loose rock and bare earth washed deep in ruts.  I had to leap these.  Perhaps in ten minutes I had traveled a quarter of a mile or less.  Then spang!  R.C.’s rifle-shot halted me.  So clear and sharp, so close, so startling!  I was thrilled, delighted—­he had gotten a shot.  I wanted to yell my pleasure.  My blood warmed and my nerves tingled.  Swiftly my thoughts ran—­bad luck was nothing—­a man had only to stick at a thing—­what a fine, sharp, wonderful day for adventure!  How the hounds bayed!  Had R.C. sighted a bear somewhere below?  Suddenly the still air split—­spang!  R.C.’s second shot gave me a shock.  My breast contracted.  I started back.  “Suppose it was a grizzly—­on that bad side!” I muttered. Spang!...  I began to run.  A great sweeping wave of emotion charged over me, swelling all my veins to the bursting point. Spang!  My heart came to my throat.  Leaping the ruts, bounding like a sheep from rock to rock, I covered my back tracks.  All inside me seemed to flutter, yet I felt cold and hard—­a sickening sense of reproach that I had left my brother in a bad position. Spang!  His fifth and last shot followed swiftly after the fourth—­too swift to be accurate.  So hurriedly a man would act in close quarters.  R.C. now had an empty rifle!...  Like a flash I crossed that slope leading to the rocks, and tore around the cliff at such speed that it was a wonder I did not pitch down and break my neck.  How long—­how terribly long I seemed in reaching the corner of cliff!  Then I plunged to a halt with eyes darting everywhere.

R.C. was not in sight.  The steep curved neck of slope seemed all rocks, all trees, all brush.  Then I heard a wild hoarse bawl and a loud crashing of brush.  My gaze swerved to an open spot.  A patch of manzanita seemed to blur round a big bear, standing up, fighting the branches, threshing and growling.  But where was R.C.?  Fearfully my gaze peered near and all around this wounded bear.  “Hey there!” I yelled with all my might.

R.C.’s answer was another spang.  I heard the bullet hit the bear.  It must have gone clear through him for I saw bits of fur and manzanita fly.  The bear plunged out of the bushes—­out of my sight.  How he crashed the brush—­rolled the rocks!  I listened.  Down and down he crashed.  Then the sound changed somewhat.  He was rolling.  At last that thumping sound ceased, and after it the roll of rocks.

“Are you—­all right?” I shouted.

Then, after a moment that made me breathless, I heard R.C. laugh, a little shakily.  “Sure am....  Did you see him?”