bolstered comfortably against the butt of a tree, and for the fiftieth time
he chuckled.

"Chuckle an' be blasted," growled Langdon. "I tell you I hit him twice,
Bruce--twice anyway; and I was at a devilish disadvantage!"

"'Specially when 'e was lookin' down an' grinnin' in your face," retorted
Bruce, who had enjoyed hugely his comrade's ill luck. "Jimmy, at that
distance you should a'most ha' killed 'im with a rock!"

"My gun was under me," explained Langdon for the twentieth time.

"W'ich ain't just the proper place for a gun to be when yo'r hunting a
grizzly," reminded Bruce.

"The gully was confoundedly steep. I had to dig in with both feet and my
fingers. If it had been any steeper I would have used my teeth."

Langdon sat up, knocked the ash out of the bowl of his pipe, and reloaded
it with fresh tobacco.

"Bruce, that's the biggest grizzly in the Rocky Mountains!"

"He'd 'a' made a fine rug in your den, Jimmy--if yo'r gun hadn't 'appened
to 'ave been under you."

"And I'm going to have him in my den before I finish," declared Langdon.
"I've made up my mind. We'll make a permanent camp here. I'm going to get
that grizzly if it takes all summer. I'd rather have him than any other ten
bears in the Firepan Range. He was a nine-footer if an inch. His head was