"Look out, fellows, the old rascal's up again, and I guess I'd better get behind a tree with my camera!" exclaimed Will, suiting the action to the words with commendable rapidity. Bang! went a second discharge at this juncture, and the bear now turning bit savagely at its hindquarters as though its wounds smarted severely. Immediately a third discharge followed the others. Bruin had by this time apparently sighted the party from whom all these stinging cuts must have proceeded. He gave a roar of rage and lumbering awkwardly across the space started to try and climb a little tree just alongside one of the tents. "It's Bluff, and he's up in that tree!" shouted Will, as he peeped around his own shelter, and took in the picture with another "click." "But--he's got a gun!" stammered Jerry. "Of course he has. Didn't he bring one with him? Perhaps a good fairy may have given him a tip as to where it could be found. There! he has fired again, and that time he missed, for the range was too close." Frank, as he was speaking, commenced to advance into the open. "Looky out, Marse Frank, he chaw yuh up, clean suah!" bawled Uncle Toby, from the crotch in the tree where his ladder had allowed him to reach. "Git up heah, honey, whah he can't reach yuh. Dat b'ar am ma-ad clar t'rough!" "Four times he's shot--didn't I say he couldn't hit the side of a barn. Think of him carrying a Gatling gun," said Jerry. "But he _has_ hit him more than once. Look how the brute is bleeding, and just to think, Jerry, he's got two more chances. Those pump-guns don't seem so very bad in an emergency," laughed Frank, who seemed to be enjoying the little affair very much indeed. "There goes one more; and the bear still lives. Talk to me about that, will you, if he didn't shoot its stub of a tail off that time! What next, I wonder? Why not execute the poor beast scientifically, and not murder him by inches?" He moved his gun forward again as though bent on shooting. Frank, however, would not let him raise the weapon. "Wait, I say; give Bluff one more chance. Make allowance for his excitement and his position while the bear is shaking that tree so. If he misses again we will both fire together and put an end to the comedy before it turns into a tragedy." "That's what it will be if Bluff ever drops down into those claws. Why don't the duffer shoot? I can't stand it much longer, I tell you." "Hold hard. I've no doubt he's waiting to get a good show, when the bear stops rocking that tree for a second. There now!" A sixth roar drowned Frank's last words. This time Bluff must have steeled his nerves, and covered the side of the bear, for with the report the animal keeled over, made a vain attempt to get up again, gave a few kicks, and then lay still. "Hurrah! Bluff has killed his bear!" yelled Frank, rushing forward, and swinging his hat excitedly.