"_
The little man from the mountains and the big man from the hills set
about the task of hunting him down with an intensity of purpose which,
like the river that is dammed, grew more fierce from being balked.
All manner of traps had failed for him. Steel traps he could smash, no
log trap was strong enough to hold this furry elephant; he would not
come to a bait; he never fed twice from the same kill.
Two reckless boys once trailed him to a rocky glen. The horses would
not enter; the boys went in afoot, and were never seen again. The
Mexicans held him in superstitious terror, believing that he could not
be killed; and he passed another year in the cattle-land, known and
feared now as the "Monarch of the Range," killing in the open by
night, and retiring by day to his fastness in the near hills, where
horsemen could not follow.
Bonamy had been called away; but all that summer, and winter,
too,--for the Grizzly no longer "denned up,"--Kellyan rode and rode,
each time too late or too soon to meet the Monarch. He was almost
giving up, not in despair, but for lack of means, when a message came
from a rich man, a city journalist, offering to multiply the reward by
ten if, instead of killing the Monarch, he would bring him in alive.
Kellyan sent for his old partner, and when word came that the previous
night three cows were killed in the familiar way near the Bell-Dash
pasture, they spared neither horse nor man to reach the spot.
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