The sharp click of the cock causing him to turn quickly round, left little time for deliberation; so, taking a ready good aim at the region of the heart, I let drive, the ball (as I subsequently found) glancing along the ribs, entering the armpit, and shattering smartly some of the shoulder bones. I exulted as I saw him stagger and come to his side; the next glance, however, revealed him, to my dismay, on all fours, in direct pursuit, but going lame; so I bolted for the mule, sadly encumbered with a huge pair of Mexican spurs, the nervous noise of the crushing brush close in my rear convincing me he was fast gaining on me; I therefore dropped my rifle, putting on fresh steam, and reaching the rope, pulled up the picket-pin, and springing into the saddle with merely a hold of the lariat, plunged the spurs into the mule, which, much to my affright produced a kick and a retrograde movement; but in the exertion having got a glimpse of my pursuer, uttering; snort of terror, he went off at a pace I did not think him capable of, soon widening the distance betwixt us and the bear; but having no means of guiding his motions, he brought me violently in contact with the arm of a tree, which unhorsed and stunned me exceedingly. Scrambling to my feet as well as I could, I saw my relentless enemy close at hand, leaving me the only alternative of ascending a tree; but, in my hurried and nervous efforts, I had scarcely my feet above his reach, when he was right under, evidently enfeebled by the loss of blood, as the exertion made it well out copiously. After a moment's pause, and a fierce glare upward from his blood-shot eyes, he clasped the trunk; but I saw his endeavors to climb were crippled by the wounded shoulder. However, by the aid of his jaws, he just succeeded in reaching the first branch with his sound arm, and was working convulsively to bring up the body, when, with a well-directed blow from my cutlass, I completely severed the tendons of the foot, and he instantly fell with a dreadful souse and horrific growl, the blood spouting up as if impelled from a jet; he rose again somewhat tardily, and limping round the tree with upturned eyes, kept tearing off the bark with his tusks. However, watching my opportunity, and leaning downward, I sent a ball from my revolver with such good effect immediately behind the head, that he dropped; and my nerves being now rather more composed, I leisurely distributed the remaining five balls in the most vulnerable parts of his carcase.