Elfreda reached for Grace Harlowe's Mexican lasso, arranged it for casting, then, after listening briefly to Grace's breathing, stepped cautiously from the tent.
The bear was tearing at the food and its covering, and grunting with satisfaction, and the supplies of the Overland Riders were disappearing at a rate that promised a famine, if Bruin's operations were not immediately checked. So busy was he that her cautious footsteps were unheard, and so deep was his snout plunged into the treasure he had found that he failed to catch the scent of his enemy.
As she neared him Miss Briggs felt a sudden weakness in the knees that threatened flight on her part, but, by summoning all her will, she managed to call back her grit.
"Ill do it if it kills me!" muttered the Overland Rider. "If I win, I shall have the laugh on Grace Harlowe. If I lose—well we won't think about that. Here goes. Steady, and 'con-centrate,' Elfreda Briggs!"
Miss Briggs swung the rope above her head three times to open the loop, and, gauging her distance as well as she knew how, she let go. One side of the loop hit Bruin on the ear.
Uttering a snarl at the interruption, the animal made a leap and accomplished what the roper had failed to accomplish. He leaped right into the loop with his head and one leg. His spring drew the lasso tightly about him. He was fast, but he did not propose to be so for many seconds. Throwing himself on his back, the bear began clawing and biting at the hateful thing that was drawing tighter and tighter about him.
Elfreda, triumphant, now highly excited, determined to hold fast to that which she had, twisted the free end of the rope about her arm and grasped the tautened strand with both hands, at the same time bracing her feet and pulling with all her might.
Bruin bounded to his feet, and for one terrible instant J. Elfreda thought he was going to rush her. Instead, the bear whirled and, humping himself almost into a furry ball, galloped away. His captor, with the rope twisted about her arm, could not have freed herself in time, even had she thought of so doing.
"Help! Oh, help!" she wailed, as her feet were jerked from under her and she was hurled violently to the ground. "Help—p!"
The camp of the Overland Riders was in an uproar in an instant. J. Elfreda, champion of peace, though not a pacifist, had started something, the end of which was not yet in sight.