The little man from the mountains and the big man from the hills set about the task of hunting him down with an intensity of purpose which, like the river that is dammed, grew more fierce from being balked.
All manner of traps had failed for him. Steel traps he could smash, no log trap was strong enough to hold this furry elephant; he would not come to a bait; he never fed twice from the same kill.
Two reckless boys once trailed him to a rocky glen. The horses would not enter; the boys went in afoot, and were never seen again. The Mexicans held him in superstitious terror, believing that he could not be killed; and he passed another year in the cattle-land, known and feared now as the "Monarch of the Range," killing in the open by night, and retiring by day to his fastness in the near hills, where horsemen could not follow.
Bonamy had been called away; but all that summer, and winter, too,—for the Grizzly no longer "denned up,"—Kellyan rode and rode, each time too late or too soon to meet the Monarch. He was almost giving up, not in despair, but for lack of means, when a message came from a rich man, a city journalist, offering to multiply the reward by ten if, instead of killing the Monarch, he would bring him in alive.
Kellyan sent for his old partner, and when word came that the previous night three cows were killed in the familiar way near the Bell-Dash pasture, they spared neither horse nor man to reach the spot. A ten-hour ride by night meant worn-out horses, but the men were iron, and new horses with scarcely a minute's delay were brought them. Here were the newly killed beeves, there the mighty footprints with the scars that spelled his name. No hound could have tracked him better than Kellyan did. Five miles away from the foot of the hills was an impenetrable thicket of chaparral. The great tracks went in, did not come out, so Bonamy sat sentinel while Kellyan rode back with the news. "Saddle up the best we got!" was the order. Rifles were taken down and cartridge-belts being swung when Kellyan called a halt.
"Say, boys, we've got him safe enough. He won't try to leave the chaparral till night. If we shoot him we get the cattlemen's bounty; if we take him alive—an' it's easy in the open—we get the newspaper bounty, ten times as big. Let's leave all guns behind; lariats are enough."
"Why not have the guns along to be handy?"
"'Cause I know the crowd too well; they couldn't resist the chance to let him have it; so no guns at all. It's ten to one on the riata."
