f a mile across,
and through its center ran a little stream of water, fringed with bushes
and small trees. On the near side of this fringe of trees and bushes and
only a short distance from where our two young friends sat on the backs
of their horses, crouched a huge grizzly bear over the body of a horse
that was still quivering in the death agony.

"The brute!" exclaimed Thure angrily, the moment his eyes had taken in
this scene of violence. "So that was the death scream of a horse we
heard! Well, I never want to hear another! But, we've got you now, you
old villain!" and his eyes swept over the little valley, free, except
for the fringe of trees and bushes, of all obstructions, exultingly. "If
we let you get away from this, we'll both deserve to be shot. Now," and
he turned to Bud, "you ride to the right and I'll go to the left and we
will have the brute between us, so that if he charges either of us, the
other can take after him and shoot or rope him."

"Good!" agreed Bud. "But, say, let's rope him first. Just shooting is
too good for _El Feroz_. Remember Manuel and Old Pedro, whom he killed,
and Jim Bevins, whom he tore nearly to pieces and crippled for life, to
say nothing of the cattle and the horses he has killed. And now that we
have him where he can't get away, I am for showing him that man is his
master, strong and ferocious as he is, before killing him. We could not
have picked out a better place for roping him, if we had been doing the
picking," and his eyes glanced over the smooth level of the little
valley. "We'll let him chase us until we get him away from the trees and
bushes along the creek, and then we'll have some fun with the big brute
with our ropes, before sending him to Kingdom Come with our bullets.
What do you say, Thure?"

"Well," grinned Thure reminiscently, "if it don't turn out better than
did our attempt to rope a grizzly when I was with Fremont, I say shoot
the grizzly first and rope him afterward. Now, it won't be no joke
roping _El Feroz_, even if everything is in our favor," and his face
sobered. "Still, I reckon, our horses can keep us at a safe distance
from his ugly claws and teeth; and it will be all right to have a try
with the ropes before we use bullets, but we've got to be careful. _El
Feroz_ is the largest and ugliest grizzly ever seen anywhere around
here, and could kill one of our horses with one blow of his huge paw.
Mexican Juan says that an Indian devil has taken possess