But the lad was weaponless, and almost unconscious from fatigue and exhaustion. Indeed, delirium had been dangerously near when Silver Tip came lumbering into the clearing. The sight of the monster had tipped the delicately adjusted balance.
With a crazy yell, the boy leaped to his feet and rushed straight at his monstrous shaggy opponent. In sheer astonishment, Silver Tip reared his immense bulk upward.
"Ha, ha! I'll kill you, you old thief, you old murderer!" yelled Rob deliriously, as he hurled his slight form straight against the monstrous hairy tower of rugged strength.
The great forepaws—armed with claws as sharp and heavy as chilled-steel chisels—extended. In another instant the lad would have been in the monster's death grip, when an intervention, as sudden as it was unexpected, occurred.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE INDIAN AGENT.
From the dense surrounding clumps of chaparral there had suddenly emerged the figure of a tall, bearded man, with keen blue eyes and a striking air of self-reliance and resolution. It was Mr. Mayberry, the Indian agent. Over his arm he carried an automatic rifle, which he instantly jerked to his shoulder as his amazed eyes fell on the extraordinary scene before him. Surely Jeffries Mayberry was the first man who had ever gazed upon the spectacle of a boy, unarmed and alone, attacking the hugest grizzly in that part of the country.
"The boy is mad!" was his first thought, and, as we know, he was not far wrong in this surmise.