And again he took up the trail of Grizzly
Jack, his one-time "pard," now grown beyond his ken.
The hunter went straight to Baxter's canon and found the sheep
high-perched upon the rocks. By the entrance he found the remains of
two of them recently devoured, and about them the tracks of a
medium-sized Bear. He saw nothing of the pathway--the dead-line--made
by the Grizzly to keep the sheep prisoners till he should need them.
But the sheep were standing in stupid terror on various high places,
apparently willing to starve rather than come down. Lan dragged one
down; at once it climbed up again. He now realized the situation, so
made a small pen of chaparral outside the canon, and dragging the dull
creatures down one at a time, he carried them--except one--out of the
prison of death and into the pen. Next he made a hasty fence across
the canon's mouth, and turning the sheep out of the pen, he drove them
by slow stages toward the rest of the flock.
Only six or seven miles across country, but it was late night when Lan
arrived.
Tampico gladly turned over half of the promised dust. That night they
camped together, and, of course, no Bear appeared.
In the morning Lan went back to the canon and found, as expected, that
the Bear had returned and killed the remaining sheep.
The hunter piled the rest of the carcasses in an open place, lightly
sprinkled the Grizzly's trail with some very dry brush, then making a
platform some fifteen feet from the ground in a tree, he rolled up in
his blanket there and slept.
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