The bear again dropped on all fours and turned his head up the rocks. But Miffin, who had restrained himself well until now, jerked his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The ball had hardly left the barrel when the savage brute, with a broken fore shoulder, came down the slope on three legs, with growls which made the blood of the Dutchman run cold in his veins, and wish himself safely back in fatherland. But he took up the gun he had brought with him from the Rhine, a gun on the pattern of the roer of southern Africa, and with his heart in his throat awaited the onset. Jules Damand fired one ineffectual shot at the savage brute, and then drew his pistols. Ben Miffin saw that he had brought this on the party, and that he was the one to be sacrificed, if any. He drew his knife and was about to close with the bear, when the Frenchman dragged him away. “Climb a tree,” he said. “Take your gun with you.” Each darted at a low pine, and scrambled up as soon as possible, just in time to escape the fury of the brute. He reared himself on his hind legs at the foot of the tree occupied by the trapper, and glared at him seated comfortably in the lower branches. The mouth of the bear was open, and the white foam dropping from the red tongue. He lowered his head and licked the blood from his wounded shoulder. The taste of blood made him more savage, and he gnawed at the tree with his white teeth. “Where are you, Jan?” cried Ben, not seeing the Dutchman anywhere. “Have you got to a tree?” “Nein!” replied Jan from behind his rock, “dere ish no dree here. I ish kilt! I ish eaten oop mit a pear! Ach mein Cott! vy you don’t shoot ’im? Vire mit de gun at ’im. Dere ish no hope vor boor Jan Schneider, dat ish drue; so help me der saints!” “Keep yer mouth shet,” replied Ben. “The b’ar may miss ye. But ef he noses ye out, _dig_ fer a tree, that’s all.” The bear evidently suspected the presence of some one else, though he had only seen the two he had treed. He began to nose about the ground, making toward the horses. But they fled at his approach, and he stopped a little way from the rock where Jan was hidden and began to snuff the air. He then advanced toward the rock. “Look out thar!” cried Ben; “he noses ye now. Climb up on the rock.”