They discovered Black Bruin about thirty feet from the ground in a thick whorl of limbs.
The young rifleman was much excited. This would be his first bear. His name would be in the local paper, and he would have a great story to tell when he got back to the city.
Experience would have taught him to draw his bead finer than he did, and also to have lowered his rear sight, which was set for two hundred yards; but taking careless aim, and thinking he could not miss at such short range, he pressed the trigger.
There was a sharp crack from the rifle, and the bullet ploughed a deep wound in Black Bruin's scalp, but glanced from his thick skull and went singing through the tree-tops.
The blow of the bullet upon the skull dazed the bear for a moment, and he loosed his hold and came tumbling down through the interlaced limbs.
But the hard bump that he got at the foot of the tree, brought him to his senses with a jerk. Right among the yelping, snarling pack he had fallen, and in sheer desperation he struck out right and left.
Two of the hounds went yelping to the rear. Then an excited boy leveled a double-barreled shotgun at the bear and discharged both barrels.
At the same instant the best hound in the pack jumped into range and rolled over kicking upon the ground. He had received the full charge.
Half-blinded and dazed by the blow upon his head, and made frantic by the yelping of the pack, the shouts of the men and the roar of their thunder, Black Bruin put all his remaining strength into flight.
Not knowing or seeing which way he went, he fled straight toward the hunter with the Winchester with mouth wide open.