Once only the hunters saw the pair—­a momentary Glimpse of a Bear so huge they half believed Tampico’s tale, and a Bear of lesser size in fur that rolled and rippled in the sun with brown and silver lights.

“Oh, ain’t that just the beautifulest thing that ever walked!” and both the hunters gazed as she strode from view in the chaparral.  It was only a neck of the thicket; they both must reappear in a minute at the other side, and the men prepared to fire; but for some incomprehensible reason the two did not appear again.  They never quit the cover, and had wandered far away before the hunters knew it, and were seen of them no more.

But Faco Tampico saw them.  He was visiting his brother with the sheep, and hunting in the foot-hills to the eastward, in hopes of getting a deer, his small black eyes fell on a pair of Bears, still love-bound, roaming in the woods.  They were far below him.  He was safe, and he sent a ball that laid the she-Bear low; her back was broken.  She fell with a cry of pain and vainly tried to rise.  Then Gringo rushed around, sniffed the wind for the foe, and Faco fired again.  The sound and the smoke-puff told Gringo where the man lay hid.  He raged up the cliff, but Faco climbed a tree, and Gringo went back to his mate.  Faco fired again; Gringo made still another effort to reach him, but could not find him now, so returned to his “Silver-brown.”

Whether it was chance or choice can never be known, but when Faco fired once more, Gringo Jack was between, and the ball struck him.  It was the last in Faco’s pouch, and the Grizzly, charging as before, found not a trace of the foe.  He was gone—­had swung across a place no Bear could cross and soon was a mile away.  The big Bear limped back to his mate, but she no longer responded to his touch.  He watched about for a time, but no one came.  The silvery hide was never touched by man, and when the semblance of his mate was gone, Gringo quit the place.

The world was full of hunters, traps, and guns.  He turned toward the lower hills where the sheep grazed, where once he had raided Pedro’s flocks, limping along, for now he had another flesh-wound.  He found the scent of the foe that killed his “Silver-brown,” and would have followed, but it ceased at a place where a horse-track joined.  Yet he found it again that night, mixed with the sheep smell so familiar once.  He followed this, sore and savage.  It led him to a settler’s flimsy shack, the house of Tampico’s parents, and as the big Bear reached it two human beings scrambled out of the rear door.

“My husband,” shrieked the woman, “pray!  Let us pray to the saints for help!”

“Where is my pistol?” cried the husband.

“Trust in the saints,” said the frightened woman.

“Yes, if I had a cannon, or if this was a cat; but with only a pepper-box pistol to meet a Bear mountain it is better to trust to a tree,” and old Tampico scrambled up a pine.