An old Bear will rarely visit a place three nights in succession; a
cunning Bear will avoid a trail that has been changed overnight; a
skilful Bear goes in absolute silence. But Jack was neither old,
cunning, nor skilful. He came for the fourth time to the canon of the
sheep. He followed his old trail straight to the delicious mutton
bones. He found the human trail, but there was something about it that
rather attracted him. He strode along on the dry boughs. "Crack!" went
one; "crack-crack!" went another; and Kellyan arose on the platform
and strained his eyes in the gloom till a dark form moved into the
opening by the bones of the sheep. The hunter's rifle cracked, the
Bear snorted, wheeled into the bushes, and, crashing away, was gone.
IX. FIRE AND WATER
That was Jack's baptism of fire, for the rifle had cut a deep
flesh-wound in his back. Snorting with pain and rage, he tore through
the bushes and traveled on for an hour or more, then lay down and
tried to lick the wound, but it was beyond reach. He could only rub it
against a log. He continued his journey back toward Tallac, and there,
in a cave that was formed of tumbled rocks, he lay down to rest. He
was still rolling about in pain when the sun was high and a strange
smell of fire came searching through the cave; it increased, and
volumes of blinding smoke were about him. It grew so choking that he
was forced to move, but it followed him till he could bear it no
longer, and he dashed out of another of the ways that led into the
cavern.
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