The bullet, not well directed, struck the animal in the flank. With a growl it swung around and began biting at the wound. A second bullet grazed its ear, and Andy, in excitement, permitted the third to go wide of its mark.
The bear, now thoroughly aroused and angered, charged directly at Andy. There were two cartridges remaining in the rifle, and Andy was immediately aware that those two cartridges must be effectively placed. He must kill the bear, or the bear would kill him, for there is no middle ground of compromise with a wounded bear.
There was small time for planning his course of action, and Andy made no plans, but permitted instinct to guide him. He sprang behind a convenient tree, and with the assistance of the tree to steady his aim, sent another bullet at the approaching animal. The shot took effect, but served to retard the bear’s advance for only a moment. Then Andy fired the remaining cartridge. It went wild, and the bear, bellowing with rage, rushed at its enemy and tormentor.
There were cartridges enough in Andy’s bag, but he had no time now to reload, and dropping the rifle he seized the low hanging limb of a tamarack tree, swung himself up, and clambered to a limb above barely in time to escape a stroke of the bear’s powerful paw.
Then it was that Andy remembered that bears can climb quite as well as men, and this wounded and blood-bespattered bear proved himself an excellent climber indeed. Up the tree he came, with an agility that was alarming, and Andy, now thoroughly frightened, slid out upon the limb upon which he was perched, to escape the long reach of the great paw.
Andy was cornered. He was certain that death awaited him. In some degree his mind became dulled and paralyzed with the thought. In a disconnected way he wondered whether the bear would tear him badly, or be content to kill him and leave his body for foxes and wolves to devour. In that moment he was not greatly concerned about it. He was little more interested in it than he would have been in tomorrow’s weather.
But the instinct of self-preservation never becomes extinct so long as life remains, and acting upon that instinct rather than upon any definite plan Andy slid farther out upon the limb. As the bear followed he continued to slide, when of a sudden the supple ends of the limb bent beneath his weight, he lost his grip, and went tumbling to the ground, leaving the baffled and astounded bear upon the limb.