No answer from Bill, so Jack went over to see if anything could have happened. When he got close to the wood-pile he heard groans and when he came upon his partner he found enough had happened, and to spare. There was Bill keeled over in the snow covered with frozen blood while lying up as close to him as two mortal enemies could get was a big brown bear breathing his last.
Jack lifted his partner to his shoulder and carried him to the cabin where he gave him first aid and washed him up. Bill was clawed, chewed, torn and bruised from head to foot and back again. Only for his fur clothing he must certainly have been killed.
After Jack had attended his partner and made him as comfortable as possible he went out to the wood-pile and took a look at the bear. Mr. Bruin had been slashed up quite a bit himself for Jack counted fifty-six knife wounds in his head and body. He was assuredly a whopper for he must have weighed in the neighborhood of six hundred pounds.
Bill lay in his bunk for two days and nights and when he got up he was still feeling pretty groggy. The first thing he did was to ask for his “lookin’ glass,” which was a bit of burnished steel of the kind used by dough-boys in the army. Bill screwed up his face and Jack thought he was going to cry.
“’Tain’t no use, pard,” he moaned looking at himself.
“No use of what, Bill,” Jack asked sympathetically.
“No use in havin’ a goil. Look at me map now and tells me, as man to man, could any goil love a guy what’s got one like it. I says no.”
“A fellow’s face hasn’t anything to do with it. It’s the kind of a fellow he is down deep in his heart, and the stuff he’s made of, that counts, not only with his girl, but with the world at large,” urged Jack.
“But look at it. Nobody but a mother could love a face like that,” proclaimed Bill, and Jack came very near thinking his partner had spoken rightly.
“Now tell me how it all happened.”