“These gashes won't amount to much, unless the claws were poisoned. You'll have to make me a crutch, and give me a couple of days to get rid of the stiffness, but then I'll be all right.”
“How did you and the bear get into this scrimmage, anyhow? You surely didn't go hunting him with that there six shooter?”
“Not I. The wind was blowing hard toward me, so he didn't smell nor hear me, and I ran right on to him. Shep was not there to warn me, but if he hadn't come back just as he did, or if I hadn't been able to get at my revolver, Old Ephraim would ha' used me up in about a minute.”
“I ain't a betting on one pistol shot against a grizzly, anyhow.”
“Of course, the chances were about one in a thousand, but I wasn't going to die without a shot. I suppose the bullet struck the lower part of the brain.”
“Yes,” said Bill, who had been probing its track. “Tore it all to pieces. But what was the bear after in that brush?”
“Give it up—ants, likely. You know—Great Scott! What's that dog got now?” Shep was coming out of the bushes, dragging a package wrapped in buckskin which was almost too heavy for him to handle. Cooper went and took it from him and brought it to the fire. It was a sort of pouch firmly tied with a thong. Running a knife under this the bundle fell apart, and a double handful of flakes and nuggets of gold and quartz rolled out.
“The cache!” Tom shouted, comprehending instantly the meaning of this. “The bear was tearing it to pieces!”
It was true. His strong feet had displaced the loosely-heaped stones, and a half-devoured side of bacon lay close by where the animal had been disturbed.
Evidently the marauder had just begun his work. There remained in the cache two more pouches of gold—perhaps a quart of the metal pieces in all, more or less pure, for all of it had been dug out of a vein with hammer and knife point, none of the fragments showing the water-worn roundness characteristic of placer gold. Then there were a small quantity of provisions, some ammunition and a small rosewood box with an ornamental brass lock having a remarkably small and irregular keyhole.