He and his companion, after taking lunch on the bank of the brook, set out to beat a thick grove in the upper end of the valley, in which the herds of elk always sought concealment when pressed by the hunters. Oscar had been instructed to follow the stream, which here ran through a wide but shallow gorge, while the guide made a circuit of a mile or two, crossed the gorge at the upper edge of the timbers, and came down on the other side, hoping to drive something within reach of the boy’s breech loader. Neither of them had had a chance for a shot during the day, and everything seemed to indicate that they were destined to go home empty-handed. Oscar had been out of sight of the guide for an hour or more. He was walking slowly up the gorge, moving with that stealthy step which he had practised so often that it was becoming a confirmed habit with him, and as he rounded the base of a lofty rock, under whose cover he had stopped a few minutes to listen and peep through the wood on each side of him, he found himself on the brow of a little hill, and within less than twenty yards of an enormous grizzly bear. The boy knew that the animal belonged to this species, because he could distinctly see the erect mane between the shoulders, the dark stripe extending along the back from the base of the skull to the tail, the white tips of the brownish-yellow hair with which the body was covered, the pale muzzle, and the huge feet, with their sabre-like claws. The animal was lying down on the sunny side of an overhanging rock, but he was not asleep. His head was raised, his eyes were fastened upon a thicket on the opposite side of the little glade in which the rock stood, and his whole attitude indicated that he was listening intently. A moment after Oscar discovered him he arose to his feet;, and the mane between his shoulders bristled like the hair on the back of an angry dog’s neck. The young hunter’s heart seemed to stop beating. If the bear had looked large while he was lying down he looked four times larger when he got up. How any man could willingly risk his life in an encounter with a beast like that Oscar could not understand. Trembling with fear lest the bear should suddenly turn his head and discover him, Oscar drew back quickly behind his rock, whispering softly to himself: “It is Old Ephraim, as sure as the world!” This was the name that Big Thompson almost invariably applied to an animal of this species. He seldom called it a grizzly. CHAPTER XXIX. A LUCKY SHOT. In none of his hunting excursions had Oscar ever been very badly troubled by what is known as the “buck-fever.” It is true that the sight of big game always startled him at first, but when the time came to shoot his hands were as steady as those of Big Thompson himself.