Never did Felix expect to see such baffled fury. After finding that all his terrible strength was not sufficient to shake the clinging boy from his perch, or bear down the tree under his weight, as he had doubtless done many a stout sapling, when wishing to feast off berries growing beyond his reach, (if grizzlies do partake of such things, as their black cousins have always done,) the baffled animal actually started to gnaw at the bark of the tree, as though in this manner he believed he might weaken it sufficiently to attain his ends.
"Now, watch your chance, and give him another!" cried the deeply interested Tom, who was closely observing every little phase of this strange fight, so one-sided Felix thought.
As he had by this time put his hand to the plow, Felix did not mean to back out. He must have that grizzly pelt, if it took every ounce of ammunition he carried on his person. And since the beast was so badly wounded that he might eventually die anyway, he ought to be finished.
But somehow Felix did not feel as though he would ever want to go through the experience again; not that he was afraid; but it seemed too much like butchery to him, with the chances always against the animal. And those feelings did him credit, too, even if they marked his decline as a big-game hunter, for as such he could not consider that his quarry had any right to live at all.
This time when he fired he believed that the bear was weakening. Tom must have thought along the same lines for he immediately called out in an exultant tone; for Tom being a stockman's son, only considered the grizzly as a possible enemy of his father's herds; and on account of previous losses from a similar source he bore the grizzly tribe only the hardest of feelings.
Again did the wounded beast try to vent his fury upon the inoffensive tree, biting and clawing at it in the utmost fury, as though possessed of the one insane idea that in some fashion it had conspired to keep the object of his anger beyond reach of his teeth and claws.
Between spells Felix sent in a fifth, and then a sixth shot. After that he would have to reload, since he had exhausted the contents of his gun's magazine, with the grizzly still on deck, though weakening.
"He's got his, I reckon!" said Tom, as the other was working with feverish haste to insert another set of six cartridges through the opening meant for this purpose, as well as to eject the empty cases after firing. "Better give him another to wind him up, though, Felix!"
The seventh shot did bring the unequal combat to an end, for the gallant old grizzly rolled over, and became still.
Tom immediately dropped down from his perch, and went over to where the bear lay.