“I wonder whether he thinks he knows how to use it,” muttered Harry, as he slowly sunk down upon his face, in the hope of escaping his eye. “If he did know how to handle a rifle, I couldn’t be more astonished than I am at the color of his coat. He does act as if he understood what it is for.”
The bear poked the barrel and stock around with his nose, then rattled his long claws over it, as though he was not exactly satisfied with its appearance. When Harry saw that it lay so that the muzzle pointed directly at him, he concluded that the danger was getting too serious and complicated for him to remain idle.
Indians between him and the river, a grizzly bear before his face, and a loaded rifle pointed straight at his head, with very strong chances of its being discharged by the clumsy clawing and scratching of the brute.
“I think I’ll back a little nearer the camp,” he concluded, “for if I can get down in that hollow again, the bullet will pass over my head, and the monster may miss seeing me altogether, until I can get further out the way, if that nose of his don’t scent me out, or if his brains don’t tell him that when he comes upon a gun like that, in these parts, the owner isn’t apt to be far off.”
But the movement made by Harry caught the ear of the bear, who raised his head as quick as a flash, and, catching sight of him, he “went for him.”
The boy was only fairly ensconced in the cavity alluded to, and had turned to see whether he could maintain his invisibility, when he saw the frightful monster almost upon him.
In the presence of this threatened immediate death, it was natural that the boy should run into the other danger, and with a howl of terror, he sprung up from the ground and struck straight for the Blackfoot camp, preferring in the flurry of the moment to run into their embrace than to remain and take a hug from the bear.
Only a few leaps, and he landed directly in the open space, where the red-skins, a short time before, had partaken of their meal.
But, not one was to be seen. The fire was still burning, but all had departed.
Harry paused a single instant, looking about with an inquiring stare, and then, hearing the bear directly behind him, he made a dash forward, and catching up one of the sticks that was still burning, he circled it swiftly over his head, fanning it into a blaze, and with this potent weapon he turned about to face his foe.