A man less wise than the superintendent would have undertaken to drive the sheep out and back to camp, but the superintendent knew the ways of sheep and foresaw that an attempt to rescue them without the aid of dogs and herders would result only in an endless surging to and fro in the basin.  Besides it was almost dusk, the bear might come home to supper at any moment and a revolver was of little use in a bear fight in the dark.  Moreover the looting of Old Clubfoot’s larder would only ensure more midnight raids on the flocks upon the mountain.  Therefore the superintendent rode away.

The next day he returned with an old muzzle-loading Belgian musket of about 75 calibre, a piece of fresh pork and some twine, and he busied himself awhile among some trees near the bear’s sentry beat.  When he left, the old musket was tied firmly to the tree in such a position that the muzzle could be reached only from in front and in line with the barrel.  In the breech of the barrel were ten drams of quick rifle powder, and upon the powder rested a brass 12-gauge shot shell, which had been filled with molten lead.  Upon the muzzle was tied the fresh pork, attached to a string tied to the trigger and passing through a screw eye back of the guard.  The superintendent knew that pork would be tempting to a mutton-sated bear, and he chuckled as he rode away.

At midnight in the camp upon the mountain the superintendent heard a muffled roar echoing far away, and he laughed softly, turned over and went to sleep.  In the morning, with two herders and their collies, he went back to the cienega.  There was not much left of the musket, but in front of where it had been was a pool of blood, and a crimson-splashed trail led away from that spot across the flat and down a brushy gulch.

Cautiously, rifle in hand, the superintendent followed the blood sign, urging the unwilling dogs ahead and leading the more unwilling Basque shepherds, who had no stomach for meetings with a wounded grizzly in the brush.  Half a mile from the cienega the dogs stopped before a thicket, bristled their backs and growled impatient remonstrance to the superintendent’s efforts to shove them into the brush with his foot.  In response to urgent encouragement, the collies, bracing back, barked furiously at the thicket, while the herders edged away to climbable trees, and the superintendent waited with tense nerves for the rush of a wounded bear.

But nothing stirred in the thicket, no growl answered the dogs.  Five minutes, perhaps—­it seemed like half an hour—­the superintendent stood there with rifle ready and cold drops beading his forehead.  Then he backed away, picked up a stone, and heaved it into the brush.  Another and still others he threw until he had thoroughly “shelled the woods” without eliciting a sound or a movement.  The silence gave the dogs courage and slowly they pushed into the thicket with many haltings and backward