ing, "Be darned kerful not to get
excited and put them in your choke barl, or tha' may be trouble."

Hunting a grizzly with a shotgun and bird shot was not my idea of safe
sport, but I was too much of a moral coward to acknowledge to Pete that
I was frightened. Pete examined his gun, ran his finger over the
cartridges in his belt, and went through all the familiar motions which
to him were unconscious but always foretold danger ahead.

"You drap on your prayer hinges behind that tha' nigger head," said
Pete, "and you will have a dead shot at the brute, an' I'll go up and
roll a stone down the mountain side and follow it as fast as I kin, so
as to be ready to help you if you need it; but you ought to drap him at
first shot at short range. Yer must drap him, yer must or I allow tha'll
be a right smart of a scrap here, and don't yer forget it!"

"This is no Christmas turkey shooting, young feller, so look sharp," and
with a noiseless tread Pete vanished in the wood, while I with beating
heart and bulging eyes watched the thicket at the end of the ledge. I
had not long to wait before I heard a blood-curdling yell and then
crash! crash! crash! came a big boulder tearing down the mountain side.
It reached a point just over the thicket, struck a small pine tree,
broke the tree and leaped high into the air, then crashed into the
middle of the brush.

Following with giant leaps came Big Pete Darlinkel down the rocky
declivity, but I only looked that way for one instant, then my eyes were
again fixed on the thicket, and in my excitement I arose to a standing
position. There was but a momentary silence after the fall of the
boulder before I heard the rustling of sticks and leaves, saw the top of
the bushes sway as some heavy body moved beneath, then there appeared a
head, and what a head it was! Bigger than all outdoors! I aimed my gun,
but my body swayed and the end of my shotgun described a large circle in
the air. I knew that my position was serious, but my nerves played me
false.

I had never before faced a grizzly. I heard Big Pete's voice calling to
me to drop behind the rock, but I only stood there with a dogged
stupidity, trying to aim my gun at a mark which seemed to me as big
almost as a barn-door.

I heard Pete give a sudden cry then there was a rattle of stones and
dirt on the ledge in front of the mountain of brownish hair that was
advancing in sort of side leaps or bounds like a big ball.

The bear came to a