There was no doubt about his having hit the mark this time. He was a good shot, and the distance was too slight for him to miss. Forgetting the law of the hunter, which requires him to reload his discharged gun before moving from his tracks, Larry lowered his weapon, and driving his broad honest face through the wreath of smoke before it could lift from the muzzle of his rifle, he dashed forward toward the game to which he was sure he had just given the finishing touch. In his excitement, and with his partly obscured view, he did not observe that the bear remained immovable. If he had noticed it, he would have concluded that the beast had been mortally wounded by the first shot and had collapsed while on the way to the stream of water. "Now Whart will be filled wid jilousy whin he finds that the bear surrindered to me. Had it been him that come in sight of the beast he wouldn't have stopped, but obsarving that it was mesilf, he threw up his hands and----" Larry paused in dismay. Crashing through the brush, he stopped close to his supposed prize, and found that, instead of its being the game he had in mind, it was the lower portion of an immense tree that had probably lain for years on the ground. It bore some resemblance to a prostrate animal, but the youthful hunter never could have made the mistake except for his flurried condition. "Wurrah, wurrah, now, but that was a bad miss," he muttered, grinning at his own blunder. "I don't see any necessity for acquainting Whart wid all the sarcumstances, but if the stump doesn't say anything about it, I'll hold me pace." The slip took away from the youth about all the hope he had felt until then of bagging the bear. He knew at the time that young Edwards gave him the better chance, for it was just like the magnanimous fellow to do that thing, and Larry had lost it through his own stupidity. He listened for a few moments, uncertain which way to move or turn. There seemed little use in trying to regain his lost opportunities, but the doughty fellow mortally hated to give up the peculiar contest without another effort. He could hear the dull roar of the torrent as it poured over the falls only a short way off, and he fancied once that he detected the rush of some swiftly-moving body through the wood. Of this, however, he could not be certain, because of the interfering noise of the stream. "Whist, now, but I forgot the same!" he suddenly added, as he recalled that it was an empty weapon which he held in his hand. "S'pose now that that cratur should turn 'round to make my acquaintance; I would have to ask him to have the kindness to wait awhile until I could get the gun in shape, and he would be mane 'nough to objict." Despite Larry's fondness for talking, either with a companion or himself, and despite the apparent absurdity of many things he said, he wasted no time when it was of value, and he committed few errors of judgment.