'Now!' shouted Snap.
At the cry the bear turned round towards Snap, and as he did so Towzer dropped to the ground and ran forward into the open with a shout.
For a moment the bear hesitated, then, with a roar that shook the pines, dashed at him. Towzer turned, and never in all his life, not even when he made his celebrated 'run-in' for the school-house with the football under his arm, did he go so fast or dodge so nimbly as he did that night.
As Towzer turned, Snap's lithe figure slipped noiselessly through the moonlight, and, not daring to look at anything else, dashed straight at the rifle.
Did the dead bear move, or was it only fancy? Fancy, surely! And now he had his hand on the rifle and turned to see a ghastly sight. Towzer stretched up at his bough and missed it. The bear was just behind, there was no time for another effort, and the boy was driven past his one chance of safety. Catching at the trunk of a big bull pine, Towzer swung round it, dodged the bear, and once more tried for his tree. This time he reached the bough, but even then, blown as he was, the bear must have reached and pulled him down, had not a ball from Snap's rifle broken the brute's spine as he reared up on end to make his attack.
Utterly spent, Towzer dropped back beside the bear and staggered across to where Snap still lay, his rifle resting on the body of the first bear, from behind which he had just fired. Together the boys sat and looked at one another, too shaken and tired to speak.
At last, Towzer, looking anxiously round, said, 'Those others won't come back, will they?'
'I don't know; if they do, I hope they will put us out of our misery quickly. I didn't know that I had any nerves before, but they are jumping like peas in a frying-pan to-night. Let's go.'
And very cautiously they went, creeping through the dim aisles of the forest, starting at every sound, and far more frightened at the meeting than was even the big stag which met them face to face just before they got clear of the timber. They never even thought of firing at him, although he was so fair a shot, and his great sides shook with inches of fat, until the camp-fire shone through the trees, and then it was too late to remember that they had gone out for venison and come back without any.
'Well, Towzer, I suppose we must put up with beans and bacon again to-night—unless,' with a grin, 'you'd care to go down and catch us a salmon, or fetch a steak from the dead stag up there,' said Snap, pointing back over his shoulder.