As the boys were retreating, Tom, turned his head to see if the bear was following, but as it was still lying on the ground, growling and biting at the rocks and scratching the earth, he thought perhaps that the danger was over, and that the bear was so badly wounded that he could not rise, or he certainly would have been on his feet fighting Tige and Prince, who gave him not one moment’s peace. Balser and Tom paused for an instant, and were soon convinced that the bear was helpless.
“I believe he can’t get up,” said Balser.
“Of course he can’t,” answered Tom, pompously. “I cut his old backbone in two with my hatchet. When he was hugging you I chopped away at him hard enough to cut down a hickory sapling.”
The boys limped back to the scene of conflict, and found that they were right. The bear could not rise to his feet, but lay in a huge struggling black heap on the ground.
Balser then cautiously went over to where his gun lay, picked it up, and ran back to Tom. He tried to load the gun, but his arms were so bruised and torn that he could not; so he handed it to Tom, who loaded it with a large bullet and a heavy charge of powder.
Balser then called off the dogs, and Tom, as proud as the President of the United States, held the gun within a yard of the bear’s head and pulled the trigger. The great brute rolled over on his side, his mighty limbs quivered, he uttered a last despairing growl which was piteous—for it was almost a groan—and his fierce, turbulent spirit fled forever. Balser then drew his hunting knife from the bear’s body, cut off the remaining ear, and put it in the pocket of his buckskin coat.
The boys were sorely wounded, and Balser said that the bear had squeezed his “insides” out of place. This proved to be true to a certain extent, for when he got home it was found that two of his ribs were broken.
The young hunters were only too glad to start homeward, for they had seen quite enough of the one-eared bear for one day.
After walking in silence a short distance down the river, Balser said to Tom:—
“I’ll never again say anything bad about your hatchet. It saved my life to-day, and was worth all the guns in the world in such a fight as we have just gone through.”