CHAPTER XVI
SOMETHING ABOUT BEARS
As they began to skin the bear, Jack said, "I want to find out why I didn't kill this bear, Hugh; I thought I held all right on it, and yet my shot never seemed to faze her."
"Well, I'll tell you what I think, son. I noticed where she seemed to snap at where you hit her, and I reckon you forgot you were shooting down hill, and shot a little high, and perhaps hit a little far back. Now, when we get her hide off we'll see."
Jack thought for a moment, and then said, "Hugh, I bet you're right. She made a kind of a step to one side just as I was pulling the trigger, and I never thought one thing about holding low because we were above her on the hillside. I guess if we open her we'll find that that shot of mine went nearer her liver than it did her heart."
"Well," said Hugh, "I wouldn't be surprised. Of course the liver is a pretty deadly shot after a while, but it isn't so good as the heart, and, as I've told you I guess more than forty times, it's always better to shoot under than over."
"Well," said Jack, "that was a pretty bad blunder. I feel pretty badly about that. I ought to have known better than to have done such a thing. I wonder if Joe shot over, too. I hope he'll get his bear, so that we can know about it."
The work of skinning the bear was long and slow, and Hugh said, when they drew the skin out from under the animal, "Now we've got it, it ain't worth anything."
It was found that Jack's ball had struck the bear much too far back, and so that it passed just under the spine, yet not quite high enough to cut the great vein that passes along close beneath the vertebrae. The bear might have lived a number of days, or even have recovered, with this shot alone. The heavy ball from Hugh's rifle had struck her in the back of the neck, and had smashed two of the vertebrae, and lay there flattened in the muscles of the neck. As Jack looked at the wound made by Hugh's ball, and then cut the flattened lead out and held it in his hand, he said, "Well, Hugh, it's mighty sure that you didn't get excited, anyhow. That was an awful good shot, even if it was close, and a mighty hard shot when you think how fast the bear was coming."
"Yes," said Hugh, "of course in a case like that a man's got to figure close. I took the chance of striking her on the top of the head, or breaking her neck, or breaking her back right between the shoulders; but I hit just the place I wanted to hit. I don't hear anything of Joe," he went on; "let's walk over to that ridge and see if we can see him. I'd like to see the trail left by that bear, and maybe call Joe back if he's going too far."
They walked quickly over to the ridge, and had just reached its top when they saw, a little way below them, the figure of Joe bending over something which they knew must be the bear, and going to him they found that he had nearly finished skinning it; and a few minutes help by Hugh and Jack completed the job.