On this occasion, however, all his nerve seemed to desert him completely. Slowly and cautiously he moved out from behind his rock, and, raising his rifle to his shoulder, tried to bring the sights within range of a spot behind the bear’s fore shoulder, near the region of his heart; but the weapon swayed about like a sapling in a gale of wind, and in two seconds’ time he had covered every inch of that side of the bear’s body except the one at which he wished to shoot. “This will never do!” thought Oscar, drawing in a long breath, as if he hoped in that way to calm his agitated nerves and stop the rapid beating of his heart, which now thumped loudly against his ribs. “If I don’t kill him dead, or disable him at the first shot, my life is not worth a row of pins. If I stay here, or run, it’s an even chance if he don’t discover me and assume the offensive. I don’t know what to do.” Oscar drew himself a little further back behind his rock, and took a moment in which to think the matter over. He could not shoot; he dared not retreat; and he was afraid to stay where he was. It looked as though he had got himself into a tight place. It has been said by those who ought to know, for they have “been there,” that when a person is drowning the whole of his life passes in review before him, like the scenes of a panorama; and Oscar could now affirm, from personal experience, that a boy who unexpectedly finds himself in the presence of a full-grown grizzly has to pass through the same ordeal. He did, at any rate. He seemed to remember everything he had ever done. Scenes and incidents long since forgotten, and which he had hoped would never be recalled to him, flashed through his mind like lightning. His heart beat loudly and more rapidly than before, and Oscar became thoroughly frightened when he found that his strength was all leaving him. His rifle seemed to weigh a ton, and he gladly would have laid it down if he had not been afraid of attracting the bear’s attention. All this while the grizzly stood motionless in his tracks, looking toward the thicket on the opposite side of the glade and listening. He did not appear to be aware of the boy’s presence, for he never once turned his gaze in his direction; but it was plain that something had aroused his suspicions. Knowing that it would be the height of folly to risk a shot while his nerves were in that condition, the boy also turned his head toward the thicket; but his senses were not as keen as those of the bear, and he could neither see, hear, nor smell anything. There was something approaching that cluster of bushes, however, and Oscar found it out a few moments later. All of a sudden a tall figure glided out from behind a tree, and Big Thompson, carrying his rifle at a trail, and keeping his eyes fastened on the snow, moved out into plain view.