"There!" cried Jack, "I guess we have got him!"
All this had been done in a very short time. While it was happening, Tulare Joe had left his horse and run around to the bear's head, and now with Jack's assistance he made a sort of hackamore of his macate and, binding the loose ends firmly around the bear's jaws, turned to Vicente and threw up his hand. Vicente at once slacked up on his rope and Joe loosened it. It had cut deep into the bear's neck.
For a moment or two the bear lay motionless. Donald supposed it was dead until Joe, stepping around to one side, pressed his foot heavily on the animal's chest close behind the outstretched fore leg and the air from the lungs came whistling through the bear's mouth and nostrils. A moment later the animal gasped for breath, and after two or three intervals began to breathe regularly, and then to struggle. It threw its head violently from side to side, and its little eyes snapped with fury, while it uttered muffled grunts and groans. The boys stood near its head watching its efforts to free itself from the ropes. It could move only its head which it threw from side to side and up and down, beating it against the ground in its impotent efforts.
"Hadn't we better get on our horses?" suggested Donald. "Suppose one of these ropes breaks, or a horse yields a little."
"No danger," said Joe; "the ropes and the horses are all right."
Vicente sat on his horse looking down at the bear.
"Pretty soon he goin' die."
"Why will he die?" asked Jack. "What's going to kill him?"
"He get pretty mad," answered Vicente. "So mad can't live any longer. You see."