Seeing to it that his own rope was securely fastened to his saddle-horn, Jack tumbled off his horse, and ran swiftly around by the bear's head, jumped over Vicente's rope and came to the bear's right side. He had beckoned to Donald, who rode up close to him. Seizing the loop of Donald's rope, he waited until the bear's foot was free, threw a small loop over it and told Donald to make the rope fast to the saddle-horn and back away strongly. Donald was riding a good cow horse, but it was evidently afraid of a bear and objected strongly to coming close to this one. However, its rider at last drove it up close enough to get his hands on the rope, and when the horse found that it was holding something, it seemed to gain confidence. Though snorting and uneasy, with pricked ears, it nevertheless remained quite still and held the right fore leg so that the bear could not move it. "There!" cried Jack, "I guess we have got him!" All this had been done in a very short time. While it was happening, Tulare Joe had left his horse and run around to the bear's head, and now with Jack's assistance he made a sort of hackamore of his macate and, binding the loose ends firmly around the bear's jaws, turned to Vicente and threw up his hand. Vicente at once slacked up on his rope and Joe loosened it. It had cut deep into the bear's neck. For a moment or two the bear lay motionless. Donald supposed it was dead until Joe, stepping around to one side, pressed his foot heavily on the animal's chest close behind the outstretched fore leg and the air from the lungs came whistling through the bear's mouth and nostrils. A moment later the animal gasped for breath, and after two or three intervals began to breathe regularly, and then to struggle. It threw its head violently from side to side, and its little eyes snapped with fury, while it uttered muffled grunts and groans. The boys stood near its head watching its efforts to free itself from the ropes. It could move only its head which it threw from side to side and up and down, beating it against the ground in its impotent efforts. "Hadn't we better get on our horses?" suggested Donald. "Suppose one of these ropes breaks, or a horse yields a little." "No danger," said Joe; "the ropes and the horses are all right." Vicente sat on his horse looking down at the bear. "Pretty soon he goin' die." "Why will he die?" asked Jack. "What's going to kill him?" "He get pretty mad," answered Vicente. "So mad can't live any longer. You see." The words were scarcely out of Vicente's mouth, when the bear gave a great bawl and then lay still, except for a few convulsive quivers. As Vicente had foretold, he had died of rage. The boys watched him closely, and gradually they saw his eyes grow dull. "Well," said Jack, "I'm sorry that the old fellow died. It seems as if it would have been better for him to have been killed by a bullet than to die in this way."