The voice was A—’s; and we all, without thinking of the horses, hurried up to the spot. Sure enough, there lay the great brute, a red stream oozing out of a bullet-hole in his ribs.
A— pointed to a tree—a huge oak that spread out above our heads.
“There he was, in yonder fork,” said he. “We might have saved ourselves a good deal of trouble had we been more thoughtful. I suspected he was not in the log when the smoke failed to move him. The brute was too sagacious to hide there. It is not the first time I have known the hunter foiled by such a trick.”
The eyes of Redwood were turned admiringly on the speaker, and even old Ike could not help acknowledging his superior hunter-craft.
“Mister,” he muttered, “I guess you’d make a darned fust-rate mountain-man. He’s a gone Injun when you look through sights.”
All of us were examining the huge carcass of the bear—one of the largest size.
“Your sure it’s no grizzly?” inquired the doctor.
“No, doctor,” replied the naturalist, “the grizzly never climbs a tree.”