“Wow! that’s fierce!” Buckskin whooped, grabbing hold of his nose with the fingers of his free hand, for he was holding fast to his gun all this time, not knowing when he might have to use it.
Now he was bending down as though listening to catch the first low growl to indicate that Bruin had awakened, and was sniffing at the smoke. Buckskin’s attitude told how he was holding himself in readiness for a lively sprint, just as soon as the signs warned him that the bear was rushing for the exit of the den in a terrible rage at being interrupted in his nap. No sensible cowboy ever wants to come to close grips with an enraged grizzly; he knows too much to risk a terrible death in that way.
It was a period of most intense suspense to both the boys.
All at once they saw the crouching cowboy galvanized into life. He leaped to his feet, and made a lively streak for the little log crossing the gap. No need to ask what induced his haste, for actions spoke louder than words in that case.
“Ready, Andy!” Mr. Witherspoon was heard to say, hoarsely.
This thing of attacking a full-grown grizzly in his native haunts was no child’s play; and even so old a hunter as the owner of Double X Ranch doubtless felt more than a little thrill as he watched to see the head of the monster thrust out of the hole in the wall.
Andy had his kodak on a line with that opening and was crouching there ready to get in some good work. Let Frank have the glory of shooting the bear if he wanted; as for him, he found more solid satisfaction nowadays in getting snapshots of game, than in trying to lay them low.
“Oh!”
It was Andy who gave utterance to this cry. A great dun-colored bulk had rushed directly across the heap of smoking fire-stuff, scattering it to the right, and to the left, as he gave a fearful roar that made the echoes ring.
And right then and there Andy pressed the bulb. He believed he had caught the bear just in the act of throwing the fire every-which-way, as Andy himself expressed it later on.