A Bear, Sitting on Her Haunches, Was Looking Almost Directly at Them.—[Page 186.]
Jack slowly raised his rifle to his shoulder, but even his deliberate movement must have been seen by the bear, for she sprang to her feet just as he pulled the trigger, and he felt certain that he had scored a miss. At the instant that he fired, the bundle under the tree separated itself into two little bears, one of which instantly scrambled up the tree, while the other ran toward its mother. A shot rang out from Hugh's rifle, but Jack's eyes were fixed on the old bear and he could not see the result.
At Jack's shot, the old bear had started directly toward the crest of the knoll from which it had come, and Jack was astonished at the speed with which she approached. He slipped another cartridge into his rifle and fired again, apparently without effect, and again, but still the bear came on, and by this time she was not more than thirty yards off, coming up the gentle slope at railroad speed.
Jack heard Hugh say, "Steady, son, steady. Keep your wits about you. Run off a few yards to your left and I'll go to the right, and let the next shot be plumb center." Jack made a couple of jumps to the left and whirled and again threw up his gun. As he did so he saw that the bear was running toward Hugh, who was at some little distance to the right. Jack fired well in advance of the bear's shoulder, and at the shot she fell to the ground, but instantly sprang to her feet and continued her course toward Hugh. She had come within two or three jumps of him when his rifle spoke, and the bear collapsed upon the prairie. Hugh had reloaded and sprung to one side and stood waiting. He called out to Jack, "Hold on a bit, son, don't go near her. She is dead enough, but we'll give her time to finish dying." In a moment or two the bear gave a few convulsive struggles and stretched out her legs and was indeed dead.
"How came it you didn't stop her with your first shot, son?" said Hugh.
"Why," said Jack, "didn't you notice that she saw us and moved just as I fired?"
"Well," said Hugh, "she surely kept coming. I want to see where all those shots went, and why she didn't die quicker. Your last shot would have killed her in a short time, but she might have run fifty or sixty yards, and have torn up two or three men before she died. Let's look at her."
As they took hold of the animal to turn her over she did not seem very large, yet they found her so heavy that it was not easy to turn her on to her back, and they could not have lifted her from the ground. In the forehead, over and just inside of the right eye, the ball that had stopped her final rush had entered and had passed through the brain. Jack's last ball had struck her just behind the elbow, and had passed through the heart. A wound was found where a ball had cut across the belly just back of the ribs, and Jack concluded that this was his first shot. They could not find his other balls, but those, if they had hit her, would be seen when the bear was skinned.
"What became of the cubs, Hugh?" said Jack, as they arose from their examination. As he spoke, there was a scraping sound behind them, and turning their eyes toward the timber, the little bear that had been up a tree was seen to reach the ground and to disappear among the trees before there was time for either of them to pick up his rifle.