"I wonder how it got away," Harry said. "When a grizzly once gets hold, it don't often leave go."
"There is something in front of the hut," Tom exclaimed.
"It's the grizzly, sure enough," Harry said. "It is a rum place for it to go to sleep."
They advanced, holding their rifles in readiness to fire, when Leaping Horse said:
"Bear dead."
"What can have killed him?" Harry asked doubtfully.
"Horses kill him," the chief replied. They hurried up to the spot. The bear was indeed dead, and there were signs of a desperate struggle. There was blood on the snow from a point near the door of the hut to where the animal was lying ten yards away. Round it the snow was all trampled deeply. The bear's head was battered out of all shape; its jaw was broken, and one of its eyes driven out. The Indians examined the ground closely.
"Well, what do you make of it, chief?" Harry asked.
"Bear walk round hut, come in other end. Horses not able to get out in time. Pack-horse last, bear catch him by hind-quarters. Horse drag him a little way and then fall. Then other horses come back, form ring round bear and kick him. Look at prints of fore-feet deep in snow. That is where they kick; they break bear's jaw, break his ribs, keep on kick till he dead."
"I suppose that is how it came about, chief. I should not have thought they would have done it."