"The story!" demanded Roger peremptorily.
"It wasn't so much of a yarn. I got it from the half-breed guide. It was quite early in the season," he began, leaning back against the trunk of a tree, "and we had just made camp, a little further on than we are now, because the water in the Kanuti River was not as high as it is this season, when we heard a shot fired, then after a regular interval another, and another, and so on."
"Meaning a signal of distress?" questioned the boy.
"Right," rejoined the older man. "Well, of course, we responded the same way, and half an hour later there staggered into the camp a wounded man on horseback, and a half-breed holding him in the saddle. The injured man was a sight, and as I know quite a little about surgery, I looked after his wounds, took a few stitches here and there, pretty much all over at that, and started them off on the trail to Fort Hamlin, a couple of days' ride away, and thence to Rampart, a couple of hours down the Yukon.
"But before they left I learned in a vague sort of way how the whole thing had come about. It appeared that the poor fellow had gone up to Caribou Mountain to shoot some big game, and had taken the half-breed along as a guide. The luck had been bad, nothing had been shot, or even sighted, and the two of them had started for home.
"One day, however, the same day that he met us, on turning the corner of a rock, the half-breed being a little distance away, the hunter saw a bear. Not knowing much of the bears in this part of the world, it simply seemed to him like a smaller species, and, dropping on one knee he pumped three shots into the brute and it fell a few steps away. Then, foolishly laying his rifle down and taking out his hunting knife, he walked up to the beast to see what his prize was like.
"Stooping down, he saw that it was but a large well-grown cub, and he stood looking at it for a moment, when a sudden feeling of danger flashed into his mind. A cub—then the old bears must be near by; he turned swiftly to get and reload his rifle. As he turned, he saw, charging upon him from the direction in which his rifle was lying, the mother of the cub. The bear, which was coming like an express train, was not seventy-five yards away, and the rifle was ten.
"Then the fellow did what seemed to me a mighty plucky thing. He knew he could not outstrip the bear, and he was sure that if he were treed that would be the end of it, so instead of running from the bear he tore up the hill to meet her face to face."
"Did he expect to get to the rifle first?" asked Roger, full of interest.
"He thought that when the bear saw him charging for her it would cause her to pause, and a few seconds' delay would enable him to get his rifle and he ran a chance of dropping her in her tracks. It was his only hope. But the brute never stopped in her rush, and when the hunter reached the gun she was only twenty feet away.