Furthermore, Katrina could not shut her eyes to the fact, that the brute was gradually approaching her.
This, in the course of a few minutes became so apparent, that the girl felt that her situation was becoming critical. A terror of alarm shook her frame, and she was on the point of uttering a call to her lover, when the bear shied off to one side so much as to give her the "opening," so ardently desired.
Katrina stood trembling and hesitating for a moment, and then with one ejaculated prayer, started like a fawn for the rocks.
She did not look to the right nor left, but she had scarcely started, when she became aware that the bear had risen on his hind feet and was seeking to intercept her.
Faster she ran, until she seemed to fly over the ground, but the bear was more fleet of foot than she, and scarcely a dozen steps had elapsed, when it became certain that she was to be intercepted by her enemy.
Then Katrina turned her affrighted gaze upon her foe, and instead of a bear saw a Comanche warrior, with a bear-skin thrown over his shoulder, and its frightful head upon top of his own, directly in front of her.
Still she sought to escape him; but the next instant his brawny arm was thrown around her, and as he turned to flee with his captive, her terrified scream rung through the woods and she swooned away.
CHAPTER XVI.
COLONEL CROCKETT'S LAST BEAR-HUNT.
"Surely I heard some one call me," muttered Sebastian Carsfield, the Texan, as he roused himself up and rubbed his eyes. "What does this mean? Crockett and I have both been asleep. What a warning to a sentinel not to lie down or give way to drowsiness. But was that voice a dream or a reality—"
He turned his head and saw that Katrina was gone.