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But don't worry; I'll get him yet." So Kellyan set out on a long hunt, and put in practice every trick he knew for the circumventing of a Bear. Lou Bonamy was invited to join with him, for his yellow cur was a trailer.
"He can't live overnight." "Send for Kellyan," said another. So Kellyan came, slight and thin. There was the beast that he had chained, pining, dying. He had sobbed his life out in his last hope's death, and a thrill of pity came over the hunter, for men of grit and power love grit and power. He put his arm through the cage bars and stroked him, but Monarch made no sign. His body was cold.
Kellyan was quick to mark the signs. "Say, Bonamy, we've got to find some honey." It is not easy to find a bee tree without honey to fill your bee-guides; so Bonamy rode down the mountain to the nearest camp, the Tampico sheep camp, and got not honey but some sugar, of which they made syrup.
His hand went to the big round ears, small above the head. They were rough to his touch. He looked again, then started. What! is it true? Yes, the stranger's tale was true, for both ears were pierced with a round hole one torn large and Kellyan knew that once again he had met his little Jack. "Why, Jacky, I didn't know it was you. I never would have done it if I had known it was you.
Whack! and a bagful of cartridges was tumbled after it. Whang! and the water-pail was crushed. Pat-pat-pat! and all the cups were in useless bits. Kellyan, safe up the tree, got no fair view to shoot could only wait till the storm-center cleared a little. The Bear chanced on a bottle of something with a cork loosely in it.
The great Bear-trail was there to tell the tale: for a while he had raged and chafed at the hard black reptile biting into his paw; then, seeking a boulder, he had released the paw by smashing the trap to pieces on it. Thenceforth each year he grew more cunning, huge, and destructive. Kellyan and Bonamy came down from the mountains now, tempted by the offered rewards.
In time he met others of his kind and matched his strength with theirs. Sometimes he won and sometimes lost, but he kept on growing as the months went by, growing and learning and adding to his power. Kellyan had kept track of him and knew at least the main facts of his life, because he had one or two marks that always served to distinguish him.
The horses never rose. "Santa Maria!" came a cry of death, and hovering riders dashed to draw the Bear away. Three horses dead, one man dead, one nearly so, and only one escaped. "Crack! crack! crack!" went the pistols now as the Bear went rocking his huge form in rapid charge for the friendly hills; and the four riders, urged by Kellyan, followed fast. They passed him, wheeled, faced him.
And still he lives, but pacing pacing pacing you may see him, scanning not the crowds, but something beyond the crowds, breaking down at times into petulant rages, but recovering anon his ponderous dignity, looking waiting watching held ever by that Hope, that unknown Hope, that came. Kellyan has been to him since, but Monarch knows him not.
Kellyan climbed a tree and got ready, but the camp lay just between them, and the Bear charged on that instead. One sweep of his paw and the canvas tent was down and torn. Whack! and tins went flying this way. Whisk! and flour-sacks went that. Rip! and the flour went off like smoke. Slap crack! and a boxful of odds and ends was scattered into the fire.
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