"Just to the right of that big boulder!"
"I see him!"
Paul Jackson knelt, rested his right elbow on his right knee, raised his rifle—and Ted groaned silently. The youngster's stance was perfect, but so was his buck fever. The rifle shook like an aspen leaf in a high wind. It blasted, and Ted saw the bullet kick up leaves twenty feet to one side of the sleeping bear.
The bear sprang up as though launched from a catapult and kept on springing. Straight up the slope he went, and across the nearly treeless summit.
Ted shouted, "Shoot!"
"Did you say shoot?"
Paul Jackson was still in a daze, bewildered by this thing that could not be but was. The bear was four hundred yards away when he raised his rifle a second time, shot and succeeded only in speeding the running beast on its way. He lowered his rifle and muttered, "I guess I'm not a very good hunter."
"Nobody connects every time."
The bear was running full speed toward the old mine tunnel. Surprised, its first thought had been to put distance between the hunter and itself, but now it was planning very well. The old tunnel had one outlet that led into a dense thicket of laurel. Certainly the bear knew all about this and he would go into the thicket. Definitely, he was lost to the young hunter.
Then, within the mouth of the old tunnel itself, another rifle cracked spitefully. The running bear swapped ends, rolled over and lay still. Alex Jackson emerged from the tunnel.