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Updated: June 6, 2025
On reaching the first village on the Spanish side, they parted with the expert izzard-hunter and his hired charge having well remunerated him for his threefold service, each branch of which he had performed to their entire satisfaction. Our travellers passed southward to Madrid, where they only remained long enough to witness that exciting but not very gentle spectacle, a bull-fight.
These considerations caused them to hesitate about cutting down the tree, and reflect whether there might not be some easier and more effective method for securing the skin of the bear. After beating their brains, for some time to no purpose, an exclamation from the izzard-hunter at length announced that some happy idea had occurred to him.
The better way would be to wait till the bear started out on his midnight ramble, a thing he would be sure to do, then close up the mouth of the cave, and lie in ambush for his return. He would "not come home till morning," said the izzard-hunter; and they would have light to take aim, and fire at him from their different stations.
True to his promise, the izzard-hunter awoke them about an hour before dawn; and having saddled and bridled their animals, they mounted and rode off. Among the great tree trunks it was very dark; but the hunter knew the ground; and, after groping along for half a mile farther, and somewhat slowly, they arrived at the base of a cliff.
This was just what the izzard-hunter desired; and all of them laying aside their guns, proceeded to close up the entrance. This was an easy task. Loose boulders lay around, and with these a battery was soon built across the mouth of the cavern, through which no animal could possibly have made an entrance. The hunters now breathed freely.
Perhaps they did not relish it so much as they pretended to do; but coming from great cities, and places where they never saw a chamois, they wished to be able to say they had eaten of its flesh. In this conjecture the izzard-hunter was, perhaps, not far out. A considerable quantity of game of other kinds is masticated from a like motive.
They passed the time pleasantly enough, listening to the stories of the izzard-hunter, who related to them much of the lore current among the peasantry of the mountains tales of the chase, and of the contraband trade carried on between Spain and France, besides many anecdotes about the Peninsular war, when the French and English armies were campaigning in the Pyrenees.
It was too late for him to hear the cry of the izzard-hunter, "prenez-garde!" or the synonym, "guarda te!" of the muleteers.
This done, the izzard-hunter swung himself to the next branch below; and, even faster than he had gone up, he came scrambling down the trunk.
They were not sure that Bruin had gone out at all. He might still be a-bed. If so, the light of the torch might wake him up and tempt him forth; therefore it was best to be prepared for such a contingency. The izzard-hunter now slipped his dogs, which up to this time he had held securely in the leash.
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