ranchmen of our
neighborhood, killing calves and colts and pigs--especially pigs.

Like a robber-baron of old, he laid tribute on the whole community,
raiding all the ranches in turn, traveling great distances during the
night, but always retreating to his lair among the rocks before morning.
This had gone on for a long time, when one day, in broad daylight, while
Ole Johnson, the Swede, was plowing his upper potato-patch, the grizzly
jumped down from a ledge of rocks and with one blow of his paw broke the
back of Ole's best work-steer; Ole himself, frightened half to death,
flying for refuge to his stable, where he shut himself up in the
hay-loft for the rest of the day.

This outrage had the effect of waking up the county commissioners, who,
understanding at last that we had been terrorized long enough, now
offered a reward of one hundred dollars for bruin's scalp--an offer
which stimulated all the hunters round about to run the marauder to his
lair.

But Big Reuben was as crafty as he was bold. His home was up in one of
the rocky gorges of Mount Lincoln to the west of us, where it would be
useless to try to trail him; and after Jed Smith had been almost torn to
pieces, and his partner, Baldy Atkins, had spent two nights and a day up
a tree, the enthusiasm of the hunters had suddenly waned and Big
Reuben's closer acquaintance had been shunned by all alike. Thereafter,
the bear had continued his depredations unchecked.

Among his many other pieces of mischief, he had killed a valuable calf
for us once, once before he had raided the pig-pen, and now here he was
again.

Without waiting to put on any extra clothing, Joe and I followed my
father through the kitchen, I grabbing a revolver from its nail in the
wall, and Joe snatching down the great eight-bore duck-gun and slipping
into it two cartridges prepared for this very contingency, each
cartridge containing twelve buck-shot and a big spherical bullet--a
terrific charge for close quarters. Once outside the kitchen-door, I ran
to the wood-shed and seized the torch which, like the cartridges, had
been made ready for this emergency. It consisted of a broom-handle with
a great wad of waste, soaked in kerosene, bound with wire to one end of
it.

Lighting the torch, I held it high and followed two paces behind the
others as they advanced towards the pig-pen. We had not progressed
twenty yards, however--luckily for us, as it turned out--when there
issued through the r