He drew his knife and knelt down to carry out his words, but I checked him. “It would have been more fitting if you had used your knife when it was alive. Now it’s too late; don’t give yourself the trouble.”
“What!” he cried. “Do you mean to hinder me?”
“Most emphatically I do, Mr. Rattler.”
“By what right?”
“By the most indisputable right. I killed that bear.”
“That’s not so. Maybe you think a greenhorn can kill a grizzly with a knife! As soon as we saw it we shot it.”
“And immediately got up a tree! Yes, that’s very true.”
“You bet it’s true, and our shots killed it, not the two little needle-pricks of your knife. The bear is ours, and we’ll do with it what we like. Understand?”
He started to work again, but I said coolly: “Stop this minute, Rattler. I’ll teach you to respect my words; do you understand?” And as he bent forward to stick the knife into the bear’s hide I put both arms around his hips and, raising him, threw him against the next tree so hard that it cracked. I was too angry just then to care whether he or the tree broke, and as he flew across the space I drew my second and unused revolver, to be ready for the next move.
He got up, looked at me with eyes blazing with rage, drew his knife, and cried: “You shall pay for this. You knocked me down once before; I’ll see it doesn’t happen a third time.” He made a step towards me, but I covered him with my pistol, saying: “One step more and you’ll have a bullet in your head. Drop that knife. When I say ‘three’ I’ll shoot you if you still hold it. Now: One, two—” He held the knife tight, and I should have shot him, not in the head, but in the hand, for he had to learn to respect me; but luckily I did not get so far, for at this moment a loud voice cried: “Men, are you mad? What reason have the whites to tear out one another’s eyes? Stop!”