“There goes one more; and the bear still lives.  Talk to me about that, will you, if he didn’t shoot its stub of a tail off that time!  What next, I wonder?  Why not execute the poor beast scientifically, and not murder him by inches?”

He moved his gun forward again as though bent on shooting.  Frank, however, would not let him raise the weapon.

“Wait, I say; give Bluff one more chance.  Make allowance for his excitement and his position while the bear is shaking that tree so.  If he misses again we will both fire together and put an end to the comedy before it turns into a tragedy.”

“That’s what it will be if Bluff ever drops down into those claws.  Why don’t the duffer shoot?  I can’t stand it much longer, I tell you.”

“Hold hard.  I’ve no doubt he’s waiting to get a good show, when the bear stops rocking that tree for a second.  There now!”

A sixth roar drowned Frank’s last words.  This time Bluff must have steeled his nerves, and covered the side of the bear, for with the report the animal keeled over, made a vain attempt to get up again, gave a few kicks, and then lay still.

“Hurrah!  Bluff has killed his bear!” yelled Frank, rushing forward, and swinging his hat excitedly.

“Come down here and stand over the fallen beast while I immortalize you as the mightiest Nimrod of them all,” called Will, rushing up with his camera ready to do the business with neatness and dispatch.

Jerry said nothing.  He looked a bit dejected as he stood there and surveyed the dead bear.  It was not envy that gripped his soul either, for Jerry was generous by nature.  Something else had seized upon him, and Frank smiled as though satisfied with the way things had come out.

Bluff came scrambling down from his uncertain perch, looking wild.

“Is he really dead, fellows?  Just to think that after all I did it with my new repeating shotgun!  Ain’t it a dandy, though?  If Jerry hadn’t gone to work and hid it away, I might have downed all the game that’s come into this camp,” he said, looking upon the black, hairy beast with a shudder, for he had had quite a severe fright while swaying to and fro with an angry bear beneath waiting for him to drop, like a ripe persimmon, as Jerry afterwards described it.

“Jerry?” shouted Will, in blank amazement.

“Yes, he stuck the gun in that long box over there.  You remember his falling over it and bruising his shins.  That was what gave him the miserable idea, I suppose.  Anyway, he did it while the rest of us were out in the brush hunting for the fellow who threw those rocks into our camp,” declared Bluff, scowling at the author of his woes.

Jerry laughed, a little forcedly it is true.