“It war a fine sight to see the way the ole feller carried himself then. He held his knife in one hand, an’ his clubbed rifle in the other, keepin’ his eyes on the bar all the while, an’ leavin’ his hoss to pick out his own way. He didn’t look the least bit skeery, but I knowed he war kalkerlatin’ how many clips he could get at the bar afore the varmint could grab him. The dogs war bitin’ at the bar’s legs all the while, an’ purty soon he had to stop agin to fight ’em off. He raised on his haunches, an’ struck at the hounds, which war as spry as cats, an’ had been in barfights often enough to know how to keep out of his reach.
“‘Now’s your time, Dick,’ said ole Bill. ‘Shoot close! My hoss ar purty nigh tuckered.’
“I war all ready, an’ ridin’ up purty close, so as to get in a good shot, I drawed a bead on him, an’ fired, expectin’ to bring him, sure. But a bush atween me an’ him glanced the ball, so that I only made an ugly wound in his shoulder. He give an angry growl, an’, beatin’ off the dogs, he dropped on all-fours, an’ made arter me.
“‘Now,’ thinks I, ‘Dick Lewis, you’re in a blamed ugly scrape;’ and so I war. The bar warn’t more’n twenty feet from me; and afore my hoss had made three jumps, the bar made a claw at him, an’ pulled out half his tail. The animal was doin’ his best, but I see that it warn’t healthy to stay on his back, an’, as we passed under a tree, I grabbed hold of a limb jest above my head, an’ swung myself clar off the saddle, jest in time to see the varmint put both paws on my hoss, an’ pull him to the ground. But that war his last move, for ole Bill sent a bullet through his brain that throwed him dead in his tracks.
“I come down out of my tree, feelin’ about as mean as any feller you ever see, for a man might as well be on the prairy without his head as without his hoss, an’ mine war one of the best that ever wore a saddle. But the bar had done the work for him, an’ no amount of grievin’ could fetch me another; so I choked down my feelin’s, an’ begun to help ole Bill to take off the grizzly’s hide. But there war plenty of Injuns about, an’ it warn’t long afore I had another hoss; an’ ’bout a year arter that I ketched one for which many a trapper would have give all the beaver-skins he ever had. But that’s another story.”
CHAPTER X.
A Beaver Hunt.
