“Say, Sapwood, you’re so smart, couldn’t you go round through the woods to your side and crawl through the clover so as get between the old Grizzly and his den?” suggested the Head Chief.

“I bet I can, an’ I’ll bet a dollar—­”

“Here, now,” said Yan, “Injuns don’t have dollars.”

“Well, I’ll bet my scalp—­my black scalp, I mean—­against Sam’s that I kill the old Grizzly first.”

“Oh, let me do it first—­you do it second,” said Sam imploringly.

“Errr—­yer scared of yer scalp.”

“I’ll go you,” said Sam.

Each of the boys had a piece of black horsehair that he called his scalp.  It was tied with a string to the top of his head—­and this was what Guy wished to wager.

Yan now interfered:  “Quit your squabbling, you Great War Chiefs, an’ ’tend to business.  If Woodpecker kills old Grizzly he takes Sapwood’s scalp; if Sappy kills him he takes the Woodpecker’s scalp, an’ the winner gets a grand feather, too.”

Sam and Yan waited impatiently in the woods while Guy sneaked around.  The Woodchuck seemed unusually bold this day.  He wandered far from his den and got out of sight in hollows at times.  The boys saw Guy crawl through the fence, though the Woodchuck did not.  The fact was, that he had always had the enemy approach him from the other side, and was not watching eastward.

Guy, flat on his breast, worked his way through the clover.  He crawled about thirty yards and now was between the Woodchuck and his den.  Still old Grizzly kept on stuffing himself with clover and watching toward the Raften woods.  The boys became intensely excited.  Guy could see them, but not the Woodchuck.  They pointed and gesticulated.  Guy thought that meant “Now shoot.”  He got up cautiously.  The Woodchuck saw him and bounded straight for its den—­that is, toward Guy.  Guy fired wildly.  The arrow went ten feet over the Grizzly’s head, and, that “huge, shaking mass of fur” bounding straight at him, struck terror to his soul.  He backed up hastily, not knowing where to run.  He was close to the den.

The Woodchuck chattered his teeth and plunged to get by the boy, each as scared as could be.  Guy gave a leap of terror and fell heavily just as the Woodchuck would have passed under him and home.  But the boy weighed nearly 100 pounds, and all that weight came with crushing force on old Grizzly, knocking the breath out of his body.  Guy scrambled to his feet to run for his life, but he saw the Woodchuck lying squirming, and plucked up courage enough to give him a couple of kicks on the nose that settled him.  A loud yell from the other two boys was the first thing that assured Guy of his victory.  They came running over and found him standing like the hunter in an amateur photograph, holding his bow in one hand and the big Woodchuck by the tail in the other.

[Illustration:  The hunter]

“Now, I guess you fellers will come to me to larn you how to kill Woodchucks.  Ain’t he an old socker?  I bet he weighs fifty pounds—­yes, near sixty.” (It weighed about ten pounds.)