“We don’t take the credit, you understand,” announced Bart, positively, and with a rather foolish grin at the recent panic he and Scotty had indulged in.
“I reckon we don’t need to,” remarked the other cowboy, energetically. “These here pop-guns don’t count much agin a grizzly. An’ when ye come to look the critter over, I allow ye’ll find whar ye punctured his hide right back o’ the foreleg, both bullets enterin’ thar.”
It proved to be a fact, upon examination; and Bob felt particularly well satisfied to know that in such an emergency he had managed to acquit himself so well. Such results seemed to show that his nerve was all right.
“But we can’t let the old fellow lie here,” said Frank.
Bob looked surprised at this.
“Why, what harm can a dead bear do?” he asked. “I should think that all the fight had gone out of him by now.”
“Sure it has,” answered his chum; “but you’d never get that skittish herd past this spot, let me tell you. They would scent that bear fifty feet away. Dead or alive, it wouldn’t make much difference to them, and we’d be apt to have a stampede on our hands. How about that, Bart?”
“A dead certainty, Frank,” replied the foreman.
“Then how would it do to roll him over that precipice there?” suggested Bob. “I’m sorry we can’t get his hide; but it will have to go this time.”
“Just the idea,” declared Frank; “and it was smart of you to think of it, Bob.”