Before Arthur could reply, Johnny's mother appeared; and a single glance at the frightened hunter and his dripping steed, was enough to awaken in her mind the most terrible apprehensions. She knew, instinctively, that something dreadful had happened. "O, my son!" she screamed, sinking down on the porch, and covering her face with her hands. Mr. Harris did not stop to ask any questions then. He knew the route the boys had taken in the morning, and his first thought was to start for the scene of the conflict, although he had little hopes of arriving in time to be of any assistance to the young hunters. "Jose!" he shouted to one of his Rancheros, who happened to pass by the house at that moment, "call all the men to saddle up at once. The boys have been attacked by a grizzly in the mountains." The gentleman carried his fainting wife into the house, and presently re-appeared with a brace of revolvers strapped to his waist, and a rifle in his hand. "Did you see any of the boys hurt?" He asked this question in a firm voice; but his pale face and quivering lips showed that the news he had just received had not been without its effect upon him. "No, sir," replied Arthur. "My horse ran away with me; but I heard the fight, and I know that the dogs were all cut to pieces. The bear was an awful monster--as large as an ox; and such teeth and claws as he had! I never saw the like in all my hunting." In a few moments, half a dozen herdsmen, all well armed, galloped up, one of them leading his employer's horse. "Vane," said Mr. Harris, as he sprang into his saddle, "you will stop on your way home, and tell Mr. Winters, will you not?" Arthur replied by putting spurs to his horse, and in a few moments he was standing in Mr. Winters's court, spreading consternation among the people of the rancho. Dick and Bob were there; but, unlike the rest of the herdsmen, they seemed to be but little affected by Arthur's story. "You'll never see those boys again," said the latter, winding up his narrative with a description of the bear by which they had been attacked. "Now, don't you be anyways oneasy," replied Dick, hurrying off to saddle his horse. "If it war a grizzly, he's dead enough by this time, for I knowed them youngsters long afore you sot eyes on to 'em, an' I know what they can do. Didn't I tell you, 'Squire," he added, turning to Mr. Winters, who was pacing anxiously up and down the porch, "that Frank would come out all right when he war stampeded with them buffaler? Wal, I tell you the same now." Arthur remained at the rancho until Uncle James and his herdsmen set out for the mountains, and then turned his face homeward.