Bruin heard them coming and stood on his hind legs to greet them.  Next moment the three were face to face.  It would have been difficult to imagine a more undignified encounter.  The big breed’s legs seemed to collapse under him; the other, who carried the gun, and was therefore the more self-possessed of the couple, brought it sharply to his shoulder and fired.

Bruin dropped on his knees, but speedily rose again, for a bear, unless hit in a vital place, is one of the most difficult animals to kill; and in this case the bullet had merely glanced off one of his massive shoulder-blades.  Being ignorant of the resources of a magazine rifle, the half-breed dropped it, and ran towards a deserted outhouse close to the horse corral.

Thoroughly infuriated now by the bullet-wound, the bear made after him.  As he could not annihilate the two men at once, he confined his efforts with praiseworthy singleness of purpose to the man who had fired the shot.  It was lucky for the fugitive that bullet had somewhat lamed the great brute, otherwise it would not have needed to run far before overtaking him.

It was an exciting chase.  The breed reached the hut, but, as there was neither open door nor window, he was obliged to scuttle round and round it, after the manner of a small boy pursued by a big one.  Sometimes the bear, with almost human intelligence, would stop short and face the other way, when the breed would all but run into him, and then the route would be reversed.  On the Countenance of the hunted one was a look of mortal terror; his eyes fairly started from his head, and his face streamed with perspiration.  It seemed like a judgment upon him for breaking his word to the rancher and interfering with the girl, when he might now have been well on his way to Battleford.

While this was going on, the cross-eyed ruffian endeavoured to clamber on to the roof of the hut by jumping up and catching the projecting sapling as Dorothy had done, but the girl stopped him in this by tapping his knuckles with the pole.

“Pick up and hand me that gun,” she said, pointing to it.  “When you have done so, I will allow you to come up.”

The cross-eyed one looked sadly astonished, but as he did not know the moment when the bear might give up chasing his worthy comrade to give him a turn, he did as he was bid.  The rifle would be of no use to the girl, anyhow, and, besides, her father and the others must have heard the shot and would be on their way back to see what the matter was.  It would therefore be as well to comply with her request and try to explain that their seemingly ungrateful conduct had only been the outcome of their innate playfulness.  If they had erred it was in carrying a joke a trifle too far.

As soon as Dorothy found herself in possession of the rifle she knew that she was safe.  She even laid the pole flat on the roof, allowing one end of it to project a foot or so beyond it so as to aid the cross-eyed one in his unwonted gymnastic feat.  In a few moments the discomfited villain stood on the roof in front of her.