"No—no. It's only we don't hold right. Aim a little coarse," said Copple. "Gee, ain't he some bear! 'No scared tall' as the Jap says.... He's one of the old sheep-killers. He'll weigh half a ton. Smoke him now!"
My excitement was intense. It seemed, however, I was most consumed with admiration for that grizzly. Not in the least was he afraid. He walked along the rough places, trotted along the ledges, and here and there he halted to gaze below him. I waited for one of these halts, aimed a trifle high, and fired. The grizzly made a quick, angry movement and then jumped up on a ledge. He jumped like a rabbit.
"You hit close that time," yelled Ben. "Hold the same way—a little coarser."
My next bullet struck a puff from rock above the bear, and my third, hitting just in front of him, as he was on a yellow ledge, covered him with dust. He reared, and wheeling, sheered back and down the step he had mounted, and disappeared in a clump of brush. I shot into that. We heard my bullet crack the twigs. But it routed him out, and then my last shot hit far under him.
Copple circled his mouth with his hands and bellowed to the Haughts: "Climb! Climb! Hurry! Hurry! He's just above you—under that bluff."
The Haughts heard, and evidently tried to do all in their power, but they moved like snails. Then Copple fired five more shots, quick, yet deliberate, and he got through before I had reloaded; and as I began my third magazine Copple was so swift in reloading that his first shot mingled with my second. How we made the welkin ring! Wild yells pealed down from the rim. Somewhere from the purple depths below Nielsen's giant's voice rolled up. The Haughts opposite answered with their deep, hoarse yells. Old Dan and Old Tom bayed like distant thunder. The young hounds let out a string of sharp, keen yelps. Copple added his Indian cry, high-pitched and wild, to the pandemonium. But I could not shoot and screech at one and the same time.
"Hurry, Ben," I said, as I finished my third set of five shots, the last shot of which was my best and knocked dirt in the face of the grizzly.
Again he reared. This time he appeared to locate our direction. Above the bedlam of yells and bays and yelps and echoes I imagined I heard the grizzly roar. He was now getting farther along the base of the bluff, and I saw that he would escape us. My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last chance had fled! But Copple's big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had reloaded. Some of these hit close to our quarry. The old grizzly slowed up, and looked across, and wagged his huge head.
"My gun's on fire all right," said Copple, grimly, as he loaded still more rapidly. Carefully he aimed and pulled trigger. The grizzly gave a spasmodic jerk as if stung and suddenly he made a prodigious leap off a ledge, down into a patch of brush, where he threshed like a lassoed elephant.
"Ben, you hit him!" I yelled, excitedly.