CHAPTER VIII
A STARTLING DISCOVERY
The Mexican boy had apparently escaped serious injury at the time the frightened cayuse made a sudden bolt upon sighting the bear, and threw him over his head onto the rocks.
The lad was already sitting up, and rubbing his knee in a dazed way, as if not fully understanding what had happened. The pony rushed wildly away, heading up the wide gully, as though with a full knowledge of where it was going. And the poor little burro would doubtless have been only too glad of a chance to follow, if only it could break loose from the detaining rope.
Meantime the ugly monster, that had been the cause of all this commotion, was shuffling closer with each passing second, eager to strike down the burro with one savage blow from his mighty paw with its long claws, after which he could proceed to help himself to what those various packages contained.
All this Frank Haywood saw in that one glance he shot toward the scene of action. The boy was apparently directly in the path of the hungry bear. And when his pony had fled in such a panic he must have also carried off the rifle, if the boy possessed so valuable a weapon.
Thus the little fellow was at the mercy of the most feared wild beast to be found in all the territory between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
A wild inclination to hurl himself between that brute and his prospective victim surged over Frank. With but a knife, or even a revolver to back him up, such a rash act would have been little short of madness. Fortunately it was not needed.
"Let me try for him, Frank!" said a trembling voice at his side.
And then, all at once, Frank Haywood discovered his chum was crouching close by, and that he was clutching a rifle in his shaking hands. How he had managed to get hold of the weapon Frank could not even guess, because his own was a dozen feet away just then.