The animal had without doubt become foundered in the swamp hole; but that was by no means the worst that had happened to him. While held more than belly-deep in the sticky mud he had been attacked by the only kind of bear in all the Rockies that, unless under great provocation, attacks anything bigger than woodmice.
A big black bear had flung itself upon the back of the bellowing, struggling bull and was tearing and biting the poor creature's head and neck—actually eating the bull by piecemeal!
"Oh, horrors!" gasped Helen, sickened by the sight of the blood and the ferocity of the bear. "Is that a dreadful grizzly? How terrible!"
"It's eating the poor bull alive!" Jennie cried.
Ruth had never ridden out from camp since Dakota Joe's last appearance without carrying a light rifle in her saddle scabbard. She rode a regular stockman's saddle and liked the ease and comfort of it.
Now she seized her weapon and cocked It.
"That is not a grizzly, girls!" she exclaimed. "The grizzly is ordinarily a tame animal beside this fellow. The blackbear is the meat-eater—and the man-killer, too. I learned all about that in our first trip out here to the West."
"Quick! Do something for that poor steer!" begged Helen. "Never mind lecturing about it."
But Ruth had been wasting no time while she talked. She first had to get her pony to stand She knew it was not gun-shy. It was only the scent and sight of the bear that excited it.
Once the pony's four feet were firmly set, the girl of the Red Mill, who was no bad shot, raised her rifle and sighted down the barrel at the little snarling eyes of Bruin behind his open, red jaws. The bear crouched on the bull's back and actually roared at the girls who had come to disturb him at his savage feast.