He was right; the bear finding so formidable and noisy a foe behind him, slipped growling down the tree, rending deep furrows in it as she slipped. Gerard ran back to his tree and climbed it swiftly. But while his legs were dangling some eight feet from the ground the bear came rearing and struck with her forepaw, and out flew a piece of bloody cloth from Gerard's hose. He climbed and climbed, and presently he heard as it were in the air a voice say, "Go out on the bough!" He looked, and there was a long massive branch before him shooting upwards at a slight angle; he threw his body across it, and by a series of convulsive efforts worked up it to the end. Then he looked round panting. The bear was mounting the tree on the other side. He heard her claws scrape; and saw her bulge on both sides of the massive tree. Her eye not being very quick, she reached the fork and passed it, mounting the main stem. Gerard drew breath more freely. The bear either heard him or found by scent she was wrong; she paused; presently she caught sight of him. She eyed him steadily, then quietly descended to the fork. Slowly and cautiously she stretched out a paw and tried the bough. It was a stiff oak branch, sound as iron. Instinct taught the creature this; it crawled carefully out on the bough, growling savagely as it came. Gerard looked wildly down. He was forty feet from the ground. Death below. Death moving slow but sure on him in a still more horrible form. His hair bristled. The sweat poured from him. He sat helpless, fascinated, tongue-tied. As the fearful monster crawled growling towards him, incongruous thoughts coursed through his mind. Margaret, the Vulgate, where it speaks of the rage of a she-bear robbed of her whelps--Rome--Eternity. The bear crawled on. And now the stupor of death fell on the doomed man; he saw the open jaws and bloodshot eyes coming, but in a mist.