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They quickly camped, setting up their canvas sheet for shade more than against rain, and after picketing their horses in a meadow, went out to hunt. By circling around Leaf Lake they got a good idea of the wild population: plenty of deer, some Black Bear, and one or two Cinnamon and Grizzly, and one track along the shore that Kellyan pointed to, briefly saying: "That's him."
Bonamy became greatly excited, for they had crossed the Grizzly's track close by. But Kellyan had been studying the dust and suddenly laughed aloud. "Look at that," he pointed to a thing like a Bear-track, but scarcely two inches long.
Bonamy had been called away; but all that summer, and winter, too, for the Grizzly no longer "denned up," Kellyan rode and rode, each time too late or too soon to meet the Monarch.
The power of scent was there to call them back again, and Jacky, the Grizzly Monarch, raised his head a little just a little; the eyes were nearly closed, but the big brown nose was jerked up feebly two or three times the sign of interest that Jacky used to give in days of old. Now it was Kellyan that broke down even as the Bear had done.
Most Grizzlies mark their length on the trees by rubbing their backs, and some will turn on the tree and claw it with their fore paws; others hug the tree with fore paws and rake it with their hind claws. Gringo's peculiarity of marking was to rub first, then turn and tear the trunk with his teeth. It was on examining one of the Bear trees one day that Kellyan discovered the facts.
"We were all in it," was the answer, and more hard words, till Kellyan flushed, forgot his calm, and drew a pistol hitherto concealed, and the other "took it back." "What is next, Lan?" said Lou, as they sat dispirited by the fire that night. Kellyan was silent for a time, then said slowly and earnestly, with a gleam in his eye: "Lou, that's the greatest Bear alive.
He had many odd ways of his own, and he was a lasting rebuke to those who say an animal has no sense of humor. In a month he had grown so tame that he was allowed to run free. He followed his master like a dog, and his tricks and funny doings were a continual delight to Kellyan and the few friends he had in the mountains.
Kellyan paused. "I can't cover your bet, Pedro, but I'll kill your Bear for what's in the bottle." "I take you," said the sheep-herder, "eef you breeng back dose sheep dat are now starving up on de rocks of de canon of Baxstaire's." The Mexican's eyes twinkled as the white man closed on the offer.
There, on his haunches, sat a Grizzly, looking down on the camp. The singed brown of his head and neck, and the white spot on each side of his back, left no doubt that Kellyan and Pedro's Gringo were again face to face. It was a long shot, but the rifle went up, and as he was about to fire, the Bear suddenly bent his head down, and lifting his hind paw, began to lick at a little cut.
At length a little moan was sign of life, and Kellyan said, "Here, let me go in to him." "You are mad," said the keepers, and they would not open the cage. But Kellyan persisted till they put in a cross-grating in front of the Bear. Then, with this between, he approached. His hand was on the shaggy head, but Monarch lay as before. The hunter stroked his victim and spoke to him.
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