This, however, caused him to remember that on the other occasion his chum had finally managed to gain the victory through his own gun, and Bluff suddenly came to a knowledge of the fact that he did have a gun gripped in his hand, and which also contained five more shots.

“Hold on!  Give me a breathing spell, hang you!  I’ll fix you yet!” he managed to exclaim, though he would better have husbanded his breath to better purpose.

The elk was not a bit accommodating.  Perhaps the animal understood that so long as it kept Bluff in rapid motion the human enemy could not find a chance to use that fire-stick again, that shot out such burning missiles.  At any rate, it persevered, and poor Bluff’s tongue fairly hung out with fatigue.

In desperation, he was about to turn around, trusting to luck to get in a shot that would put an end to this awful chase in a circle, when the elk tripped and fell.

“Now!” gasped Bluff.

You would have thought he must have leveled his gun and fired.  Jerry or Frank would, in all probability, have done that very thing.  But Bluff seemed to go back to the first law of Nature, which is self-preservation.

He dropped his gun, and seizing a limb that happened to be within reach, climbed into the tree with the agility of a monkey.  Fear spurred him on to do his best work just then.

“Don’t you wish you could?” he shouted derisively down at the elk, which was jumping up, and making all manner of threatening movements with its antlered head, much after the fashion of an enraged goat, Bluff thought.

He was safe enough, but somehow Bluff did not like the idea of having to wait in the tree until his chums, drawn by his calls, came to the rescue.  Why, he would never hear the end of the thing!  It was too horrible to contemplate, and in some fashion he must secure possession of his gun to end the career of that pugnacious old bull elk.

  [Illustration:  “Don’t you wish you could?” He shouted derisively down at
  the elk.—­Page 98.
  The Outdoor Chums After Big Game.]

Bluff had read more or less about the strange adventures that befall hunters of big game.  He also remembered how one man had fished for his gun, and successfully, under similar conditions.

Having no cord in his pocket, he deliberately tore his handkerchief into strips and knotted them together.  When this failed to reach the ground, he fastened it to the end of a long and stout “sucker,” or sprout, which he cut from the body of the tree.

A running loop was made at the other end, for he could see that his gun lay in such a position that the barrel was tilted.

Bluff then began to angle.  Many times he came near accomplishing his purpose, when something occurred to break up his plans.

“I’ll never give up,” he declared, when the elk moved forward, as if suspecting something, and endeavored to catch the dangling noose in its antlers, which Bluff would not have happen for anything.