at the strength of the bear
was failing and that he bled freely, and was not far behind him when he
fell.

"Whoop! whoop! whoop! I have killed a grisly. My bear!" he shouted, and
it was all in vain that the Big Tongue ran faster than even the Long
Bear himself, for Two Arrows had the advantage of them. His lance was
the first to be plunged into the dying monster, and the great brute tore
up the sod around him for only half a minute before he stretched himself
out and all was over. With the help of several hours of quiet bleeding,
which cannot always be provided for in such cases, Two Arrows had fought
and killed a grisly single-handed, and again Long Bear was the proudest
man in the whole Nez Perce nation. The steepness of the rock had helped
a good deal, and the bear had hardly had a fair chance, but after all he
had been whipped by a boy of fifteen. It was a disgrace to the grisly
but it was a great honor to the young hero, for by all Indian law he was
thenceforth entitled to wear the claws of that bear on state occasions.
Adding all things together, bisons and big-horn and cougar and grisly,
Two Arrows was rapidly getting to be a middle-aged warrior, and the
other boys had no hope of catching up with him. He might also fairly be
said to have led his band into that valley, and now the pity of it was
that they had no ponies to eat such excellent grass.

The remainder of the band came down the pass remarkably, with Na-tee-kah
well in advance of everybody else.

"Could anything terrible have happened to Two Arrows?"

Her heart beat hard with exertion and anxiety, and when she reached the
level she hurried right along upon the trail of the braves. It was not
many minutes before she could see them, and a sort of mist came before
her eyes. They were all sitting upon the grass around something, and she
could hear her father's voice chanting. It was a curious kind of song of
triumph, belonging especially to a case of large grisly bear slaying,
but Na-tee-kah could not hear it clearly at first, and it might have
been a funeral song for all the music there was in it. All out of breath
she toiled on, as near as an Indian girl might come to a party of
warriors, and then she understood it like a flash. Red or white, she was
only a girl, and she sat down on the grass and began to cry. The Big
Tongue had risen as she came near, and he was polite enough to say to
her,

"Squaw not cry. Boy all right. We have killed a bear. Ugh!"