of them--a
cloud that was advancing rapidly in their direction to the
accompaniment of loud bleating.

"A herd of mountain sheep on the stampede," was the Skipper's immediate
verdict.

"Sheep? Coming towards us?" exclaimed Bob, and as the words were spoken
there could be seen amid the dust a lot of woolly animals tearing
frantically along the narrow path, throwing the stones from beneath
their feet, while now and then one would stumble and roll down the slope
as though it had been shot from a cannon.

The noise was bewildering as it echoed among the barren hills and rocks.

"See! There's a black animal chasing them!" exclaimed Holden excitedly.

"A bear," said Mackintosh with grim calmness, as he rapidly slung his
repeating rifle into readiness, an example that the boys quickly
followed.

"What's to be done?" Bob questioned. Frankly he had not the remotest
notion how to meet such an emergency, for it was impossible to climb
upwards, as it was equally impossible to descend, while to retire along
the path would only be to postpone the threatening disaster for a few
minutes.

"Come! Follow me quickly; but be careful," Mackintosh suddenly ordered,
he himself hastening forward as the boys followed.

At this position the side of the hill bent to the left in the form of a
horseshoe, so that it was quite easy from where the three adventurers
stood to throw a stone across the intervening chasm to the path at the
other side.

Mackintosh led the way until he had reached the first spur; then he told
the boys to wait.

"Keep your hands steady and your guns ready, boys," he said. "I'm going
along a bit to shoot down the leaders, if it may be; you empty your
rifle and a round or two o' shot into yon bear. They'll all be opposite
us on the other side in a few minutes. A steady nerve will do it; so, if
ever you were cool in your born days, this is the day to be coolest."

Without waiting for further remark from either side, the man then
hastened some yards along the path and took up a position where he could
kneel and steady his gun arm on a boulder, and hardly had the several
positions been taken up when with roar and clatter and cloud the
stampede rounded the opposite hill-spur.

Crack! went the Scotsman's repeater. Crack! crack! And down tumbled
three sheep, two of which rolled over the slope, leaving one to bar the
way in the path. The others took the downward plunge. Crack! crack!
crack! The rifle spoke rapidly and