"Good, young un!" said Ladds, bringing piece to shoulder. This time Grisly roars no more. He rolls over. He is shot to the heart, and is dead.
The other participator in this chasse of two heard the crack of the rifles. His senses were growing dazed with fear; he did not stop, he ran on still, but with trembling knees and outstretched hands; and when he came to a heap of shingle and sand—one of those left over from the old surface-mines—he fell headlong on the pile with a cry, and could not rise. The two who shot the bear ran across the ground—he lay almost at their feet—to secure their prey. After them, at a leisurely pace, strode John, the servant. The greasers stayed behind and laughed.
"Grisly's dead," said Tommy, pulling out his knife. "Steak?"
"No; skin," cried the younger. "Let me take his skin. John, we will have the beast skinned. You can get some steaks cut. Where is the man?"
They found him lying on his face, unable to move.
"Now, old man," said the young fellow cheerfully, "might as well sit up, you know, if you can't stand. Bruin's gone to the happy hunting-grounds."
The man sat up, as desired, and tried to take a comprehensive view of the position.
Jack handed him a flask, from which he took a long pull. Then he got up, and somewhat ostentatiously began to smooth down the legs of his trousers.
He was a thin man, about five and forty years of age; he wore an irregular and patchy kind of beard, which flourished exceedingly on certain square half-inches of chin and cheek, and was as thin as grass at Aden on the intervening spaces. He had no boots; but a sort of moccasins, the lightness of which enabled him to show his heels to the bear for so long a time. His trousers might have been of a rough tweed, or they might have been black cloth, because grease, many drenchings, the buffeting of years, and the holes into which they were worn, had long deprived them of their original colour and brilliancy. Above the trousers he wore a tattered flannel shirt, the right arm of which, nearly torn to pieces, revealed a tattooed limb, which was strong although thin; the buttons had long ago vanished from the front of the garment; thorns picturesquely replaced them. He wore a red-cotton handkerchief round his neck, a round felt hat was on his head; this, like the trousers, had lost its pristine colour, and by dint of years and weather, its stiffness too. To prevent the hat from flapping in his eyes, its possessor had pinned it up with thorns in the front.
Necessity is the mother of invention: there is nothing morally wrong in the use of thorns where other men use studs, diamond pins, and such gauds; and the effect is picturesque. The stranger, in fact, was a law unto himself. He had no coat; the rifle of Californian civilisation was missing; there was no sign of knife or revolver; and the only encumbrance, if that was any, to the lightness of his flight was a small wooden box strapped round tightly, and hanging at his back by means of a steel chain, grown a little rusty where it did not rub against his neck and shoulders.