derous mother following at a
snail's pace--that seemed easy. He carefully estimated the short distance
between them.

But if these were the sensations that registered themselves on the brain
cells of this tawny creature, he had reckoned wrong.

He had made just two springs when the mother bear right about faced and,
nosing her cub to a position behind her, stood at bay.

Seeing this, the tiger paused. Lashing his tail and crouching for a
spring, he uttered a low growl of defiance.

The bear's answer to this was a strange sound like the hissing of a goose.
She held her ground.

Then, seeing that the cat did not spring again, she wheeled about and
began pushing the cub slowly before her.

"Will 'e get 'im?" whispered Jarvis.

"Don't know," answered Dave. "If I had a rifle, he wouldn't. Whew! What a
robe that yellow pelt would make! Just prime, too!"

Lashing his tail more furiously than before, the tiger sprang. Now he was
within thirty feet of the bear, now twenty, now ten. It seemed that the
next spring would bring him to his goal.

But here he paused. The mother was between him and his dinner. He circled.
The bear circled clumsily. The cub was always behind her. The tiger stood
still. The bear moved slowly backward, still pushing her cub. Again the
tiger sprang. This time he was but eight feet distant. He growled. The
bear hissed. The crisis had come.

With a sudden whirl to one side, the cat sprang with claws drawn and paws
extended. It was clear that he had hoped to outflank the bear. In this he
failed. A great forepaw of the bear swung over the tiger's head, making
the air sing.

She nipped at the yellow fur with her ivory teeth. Here, too, she was too
late; the tiger had leaped away.

The tiger turned. There were flecks of white at the corners of his mouth.
His tail whipped furiously. With a wild snarl, he threw himself at the
mother bear's throat. It was a desperate chance, but for a second it
seemed that those terrible fangs would find their place; and, once they
were set there, once the knife-like claws tore at the vitals of the bear,
all would be over. Then he would have a feast of good young bear.

At the very instant when all this seemed accomplished, when Jarvis
breathed hoarsely, "Ah!" and Dave panted, "Oh!", there came a sound as of
a five-hundred-pound pile-driver descending upon a bale of hay.

Like a giant plaything seized by a cyclone, the tiger whirled to the right
twelve feet away, t