When the dawn had fully come, and the great red sun was climbing up into the heavens, the boy went to look at the bear's tracks. Later on, when he had learnt some of the secrets of wood-craft, those tracks would have been plain enough to him--a story written in large print, which he could easily read from his saddle. Now, groping about with his nose almost on the ground, he could not make much of them, and hardly knew the bear's tracks from his pony's. At last (and not very far from the camp fire) Snap came upon a great splash of blood. Even he (inexperienced though he was) understood this, and rightly concluded that the bear was hit. 'A deuced lucky fluke,' he said to himself honestly enough, as he went back to the fireside, his eyes brightening, as far away on the plain outside the clump of bull-pines he saw two of the cowboys cantering towards him. They were soon alongside and listened to his story, after which they went to look at the tracks. 'Wal,' said one, 'you've got the right sort o' grit, lad, but it's tarnation lucky for you that that bar as you shot at warn't the critter as stampeded them cows last night.' 'Why?' asked Snap. 'Why? wal,' replied the cowboy, 'them tracks is the tracks of a black bar, and they ain't of no account. The bar as stampeded them cattle last night was a grizzly, and if you'd happened to take it into your head to do a little rifle-shooting at him with that thing--wal! you wouldn't have been here this morning.' CHAPTER XI BRINGING HOME THE BEAR 'I reckon you mout as weel go along o' the boy and fetch in that "bar,"' said old Tony to Atkins. 'I guess he won't travel far, by the froth in the blood.' 'Right, pard,' replied Atkins; 'come along, Snap, and leave your horse with the boys.' Snap did as he was bid, and strode manfully after Atkins into the bush, although, from the unusual amount of riding which he had done lately, he was 'as stiff as starch' as he expressed it. Moreover, although he had simply to follow Atkins, whilst Atkins had to find and follow the trail which Snap had long since lost, he found it impossible to keep pace with the cowboy, or in any way to imitate the long, silent stride of that worthy. Snap's pace was neither swift nor silent, and I regret to say he very soon became furiously hot and desperately angry. It did not seem to matter how much he tried to avoid them, his shin was always coming in contact with dead logs over which the luxuriant ferns had grown in summer. At every stride he trod upon a dry twig, which cracked as loudly as a stock whip, and to finish his discomfiture every hazel in the forest swung back and lashed him across his eyes or nose. If he kept his temper through all this, he found himself up to his knees in a bog hole, or a briar tweaked his cap off, or a creeper coiled round his ankle and let him down with a terrific thump. At last Atkins turned round with a compassionate grin: