Before he began his walk to camp Donald saw the other boys mount their horses and ride off over the hills. As soon as he started, his horse began to make trouble for him. It began by bucking hard at the end of the rope, and Donald was somewhat uneasy lest either the strings which bound the hide on the horse's back should stretch, or come loose, or else the saddle should shift. In this case he would lose his hide, for once on the ground it was not likely that one man could tie it on the horse again. Fortunately, everything held, for Tulare Joe before leaving him had carefully gone over all the fastenings. Even after the horse had ceased bucking, it was very uneasy, looking back at its load and trying to bolt, or occasionally swerving from side to side and dragging Donald about on the end of the rope. He had not had sufficient experience with a rope to understand how to hold a horse effectively, and sometimes he was dragged along, with arms outstretched, for a number of yards over the prairie, before the horse yielded to the pull of the rope. A man of greater experience would readily have stopped the horse in a number of its rushes by throwing his right hand behind his hip and then leaning back against the rope, but Donald had not yet learned how to do this and during his long walk back to camp he suffered much discomfort because of his lack of knowledge. Two or three times he thought that he would mount his horse; but each time the beast threatened trouble, so that Donald feared he might lose his bear skin off the saddle; and now, since he had worked so hard to save it, he was determined that he would take no risks about it. It occurred to him also that if his horse should get away from him and should run to camp and in among the cávaya, the loose horses would be certain to stampede, and might be scattered far over the prairie. It seemed better to walk the whole way than to take a risk such as this. So he kept walking; and it was a hot, dirty and weary young Englishman who at length reached the camp. He tied his rope short to a wagon wheel and took the bear skin from his horse, and then unsaddled and turned loose the animal. It was some hours later when Vicente, Jack and Tulare Joe reached camp with a small bunch of cattle. CHAPTER XXI A CALIFORNIA BEAR HUNT That evening in camp Jack and Donald were full of the exploits of the day--the roping and death of the bear. "What I can't understand yet," said Donald, "is why that bear died. Vicente said that it died because it was so mad; and certainly we know that it died, and without being hurt, except so far as it was choked before we got it stretched out. Did you ever hear of anything of that kind, Hugh? I suppose you know more about bears than anybody in the camp."