Hunter was written on his leathern
garb, on his tawny face, on his lithe and sinewy form, and shone in
his clear gray eye.
The cloven granite peak might pass unmarked, but a faint dimple in the
sod did not. Calipers could not have told that it was widened at one
end, but the hunter's eye did, and following, he looked for and found
another, then smaller signs, and he knew that a big Bear and two
little ones had passed and were still close at hand, for the grass in
the marks was yet unbending. Lan rode his hunting pony on the trail.
It sniffed and stepped nervously, for it knew as well as the rider
that a Grizzly family was near. They came to a terrace leading to an
open upland. Twenty feet on this side of it Lan slipped to the ground,
dropped the reins, the well-known sign to the pony that he must stand
at that spot, then cocked his rifle and climbed the bank. At the top
he went with yet greater caution, and soon saw an old Grizzly with her
two cubs. She was lying down some fifty yards away and afforded a poor
shot; he fired at what seemed to be the shoulder. The aim was true,
but the Bear got only a flesh-wound. She sprang to her feet and made
for the place where the puff of smoke arose. The Bear had fifty yards
to cover, the man had fifteen, but she came racing down the bank
before he was fairly on the horse, and for a hundred yards the pony
bounded in terror while the old Grizzly ran almost alongside, striking
at him and missing by a scant hair's-breadth each time.
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