"Not here. Dog go right on," said Long Bear. "Follow. Find Two Arrows somewhere."
They had not far to go now before they halted as if with one accord. From the summit of a granite bowlder, a hundred yards in advance of them, came a shrill whoop, and there stood the object of their search, firmly erect and seemingly unharmed.
"Boy all right," said Big Tongue. "Better come down."
"Two Arrows no fool," said Long Bear. "Go slow. Watch dog."
One-eye still trotted on, but more slowly, until he turned the corner of the rock. He reappeared in a second, with a sharp, warning yelp, followed by the fierce growling charge of an uncommonly large grisly bear.
"Ugh!" said Long Bear. "Stand still. Boy been treed."
He had not been "treed," he had been bowldered, and the grisly had been arrowed and lanced thoroughly. His angry charge had been made with his last energies, and before he advanced half-way he reeled and fell.
There was no boy upon the rock now. Two Arrows darted down from his perch, slipping, sliding the instant the bear followed One-eye. He had waited up there for hour after hour, looking down at his half disabled enemy, and he was tired of it. He had seen that the strength of the bear was failing and that he bled freely, and was not far behind him when he fell.
"Whoop! whoop! whoop! I have killed a grisly. My bear!" he shouted, and it was all in vain that the Big Tongue ran faster than even the Long Bear himself, for Two Arrows had the advantage of them. His lance was the first to be plunged into the dying monster, and the great brute tore up the sod around him for only half a minute before he stretched himself out and all was over. With the help of several hours of quiet bleeding, which cannot always be provided for in such cases, Two Arrows had fought and killed a grisly single-handed, and again Long Bear was the proudest man in the whole Nez Percé nation. The steepness of the rock had helped a good deal, and the bear had hardly had a fair chance, but after all he had been whipped by a boy of fifteen. It was a disgrace to the grisly but it was a great honor to the young hero, for by all Indian law he was thenceforth entitled to wear the claws of that bear on state occasions. Adding all things together, bisons and big-horn and cougar and grisly, Two Arrows was rapidly getting to be a middle-aged warrior, and the other boys had no hope of catching up with him. He might also fairly be said to have led his band into that valley, and now the pity of it was that they had no ponies to eat such excellent grass.
The remainder of the band came down the pass remarkably, with Na-tee-kah well in advance of everybody else.