Wharton Edwards possessed wonderful fleetness of foot, and counted on no trouble in running down the lumbering beast; but when he struck the point where he ought to have been visible, he was not in sight.
The acute hearing of the youth, however, told him where the bear was plunging through the undergrowth. It was in the direction of the stream, and fearful that he would escape him altogether, Wharton took up the pursuit with all the energy at his command.
The momentary pause had given the bear an advantage which he used with a sagacity worthy of a more intelligent creature than he. Without turning to the right or left, he swung ponderously along until he reached the edge of the torrent, into which he tumbled like a rock falling down the side of a mountain.
"I've got you now!" was the exultant exclamation of the youth, who reached the point where bruin had disappeared within ten seconds afterwards.
An exasperating state of affairs confronted him. The high, rocky bluff on each side of the swift current shut out all view of the water within two or three yards of the side on which the spectator happened to stand. Whether instinct led the bear to adopt the course he did is uncertain, but it is hardly credible, since his species are well known to be stupid; but, be that as it may, this specimen, instead of making for the other bank, kept so near to the one from which he had leaped that young Edwards could not see him. The only way in which he could gain a view of him was by lying down on his face and peering over.
He had no time to do this, besides which, under the circumstances, it was almost impossible to gain a shot at the swimming bear.
The presumption was that he would make for the other bank in quest of some opening by which to leave the water, but Wharton, in his eagerness, was unwilling to count upon that.
"If I were upon the other side," was his thought, as he hurried nervously along the bluff, seeking to keep pace with the rushing current, "I would have him just where I wanted him. But I shall lose him, for there is no way to get across--yes there is, and I'll do it, sure as a gun."
A hundred yards below, and quite near the falls, the bluffs approached each other so closely that he was sure he could leap from one to the other. Thus in a bound he could place himself in the best position to shoot the game against which he began to feel a resentment because of the manner in which it baffled him.