"We've got to trick him after what happened to-day," declared Bruce. "No more tracking 'im after this, Jimmy. We can track until doomsday an' he'll always know where we are." He paused for a moment and listened. "Funny the dogs don't come," he said. "I wonder—"
He looked at Langdon.
"Impossible!" exclaimed the latter, as he read the significance of his companion's look. "Bruce, you don't mean to say that bear might kill them all!"
"I've hunted a good many grizzlies," replied the mountaineer quietly, "but I ain't never hunted a trickier one than this. Jimmy, he trapped them dogs on the ledge, an' he tricked the dog he killed up on the peak. He's liable to get 'em all into a corner, an' if that happens—"
He shrugged his shoulders suggestively.
Again Langdon listened.
"If there were any alive at dark they should be here pretty soon," he said. "I'm sorry, now—sorry we didn't leave the dogs at home."
Bruce laughed a little grimly.
"Fortunes o' war, Jimmy," he said. "You don't go hunting grizzlies with a pack of lapdogs, an' you've got to expect to lose some of them sooner or later. We've tackled the wrong bear, that's all. He's beat us."
"Beat us?"