It seemed that he was right, for when the redmen saw that Harvey Brill had left his rifle with Ned, their murmurs subsided, and the chief lowered his gun.
“We’ll decide this right now, Standing Horse,” went on the Westerner. “I’ll cut out the bullets and prove to you that I’m right, and that this young man killed the bear. Come on, now, be a sport and take part in this post mortem examination.”
“White man sport—Indian sport!” said the chief, and, not to be outdone in “bluff,” Standing Horse passed his rifle to one of his followers and joined Harvey at the dead bear.
The two stood for a moment over the carcass of bruin, as though each was waiting for the action of the other. Then Harvey motioned courteously for the Indian to proceed to cut out the bullets to satisfy himself.
“White man cut,” spoke Standing Horse, briefly. It was a partial acknowledgment that he would play fair.
“All right, Indian,” replied Harvey, drawing a hunting knife, with which he had armed himself on leaving the airship camp. “I’ll do the cutting and I’ll prove to you that you’re in the wrong. There’s nothing like being fair and right, you know. Here goes!”
It did not take long to extract the bullet fired from the rifle of Standing Horse. It had not penetrated deeply, and, while in a spot that might have caused death from bleeding in time, it was not necessarily vital.
To get Ned’s missile, however, was a harder task, and Harvey had to cut deeply before he found it. Then he located it so near the heart that the organ itself was injured. Ned had aimed high, but his gun must have dropped as he pulled the trigger, for the bullet went in back of the right shoulder, taking a diagonal course and almost passing through the body of the beast. The motor boy’s gun was a high-powered one, and the bullet, mushrooming, or spreading out, had inflicted a deadly wound.
“There, you see!” exclaimed Harvey, triumphantly as he laid the two missiles side by side on the ground. “White boy’s bear!”
For a moment Standing Horse did not reply. Then he grunted out: