"What a dreadful-looking monster! And do you mean to tell us, Mr. Wallace, that this terrible beast was killed by a boy?"
"That's what they say," answered the gentleman addressed.
"How brave he must be! Go and find him, please. I should like to see him."
"It will afford me great pleasure to do so. I don't know him even by sight, but I can soon find someone who does."
It was eight o'clock in the evening. The museum doors had been opened, and the guests had nearly all arrived.
There was a crowd about each one of Oscar's "masterpieces." Among those who were gathered around the grizzly was a group composed of three ladies and a gentleman, and it was one of the former who uttered the exclamation, and asked the question with which this chapter opens.
A little distance away, and within plain hearing, stood Oscar Preston, with his mother on his arm.
The boy had heard a good many flattering remarks during the quarter of an hour that had elapsed since the guests began to arrive, and he had wished more than once that he was back in the foot-hills, with nobody but Big Thompson for company.
He could hardly make up his mind which was the most trying ordeal—facing a grizzly when a human life depended on his nerve, or hearing himself praised by people who, being unacquainted with him, expressed their sentiments in his presence without the least hesitation.
"Let's go away, mother," said he in a whisper. "I don't want to be introduced to those ladies if I can help it; for they will ask a thousand and one questions. I shot the bear, dreadful as he looks, but I would rather that somebody else should tell the story."