keep from being dislodged. And then again, there was always a chance that the furious grizzly might actually snap the tree off.

After a short time the animal seemed to tire of this sport. Greatly to the relief of Giraffe he ambled away.

“Good-bye, old feller! Come again when you can’t stay so long!” cried Giraffe, whose courage returned when he realized that his safety was assured.

But the bear did not have the remotest idea of abandoning his game.

“He smells our grub, that’s what!” called out Bumpus. “See him sniffing, would you? And there he goes, right at our stock of things. Oh! what if he gobbles it all up, whatever will we do, stranded away up here?”

“We’ve got to do something, boys, to chase him off,” declared Allan.

“If I had some powder up here, I’d show him,” declared Giraffe.

“What would you do?” demanded Smithy, who for once had not waited to pick out a clean tree, when he started to “elevate.”

“Why, I’d wet some powder, and make those sputtering ‘devils’ you remember I used to carry around with me. Then I’d get the old bear right under, put a match to a bunch of the powder, and when it took to sending out sparks to beat the band, I’d drop it on his back. Wow! but take my word for it, boys, he’d make tracks out of this in a cloud of smoke.”

“Well, suh, why don’t you do that, and help us out of a bad scrape?” demanded Bob White, whose hot Southern blood fairly boiled at the ridiculous idea of eight wide-awake scouts being made prisoners, by just one old bear.

“For several reasons,” replied Giraffe, calmly. “In the first place I don’t happen to possess a single match, even if I had the powder, which is not the case. And then again, I want to see how our sagacious and resourceful scoutmaster works his little game.”

This caused all the others to turn their attention toward Thad. For the first time they discovered that he was lowering a long piece of cord, with an open loop a few inches in diameter at the end.

“Oh! I know what he’s hoping to do,” sang out Bumpus. “He wants to fish up Step Hen’s gun, that lies just below him, where Step Hen dropped it.”

“That’s the stuff!” declared Davy Jones, excitedly, as he watched the operation.

“But look at the bear, fellers!” cried Giraffe. “He’s right at it now, chawin’ up our grub as if he could store away the lot of it. Guess he’s forgot all about us.”

“Don’t you believe it,” declared Allan. “Watch me prove it.”

With that he made as if to descend his tree. No sooner had his swinging legs attracted the attention of the bear, than uttering savage growls he abandoned his feast, and came hurriedly over, to look up at Allan with those cruel little eyes, as if inviting him to just try it.

So Thad had to suspend operations until Bruin, overtaken by a desire to once more revel in the camp-stores, shuffled back again to the neighborhood of the twin tents.

“Don’t coax him over here again, please, Allan,” remarked the scoutmaster, who was now busily engaged “fishing” with that looped cord, trying to drop the noose over the end of the little rifle, which, by a rare chance, was raised a few inches from the ground.

The other scouts were all watching his labor, being deeply interested in the result.

“Now you’ve got a bite, Thad!” called out Giraffe.

“Give it to him, Thad!” advised Step Hen.

But the fisherman was too cautious to risk so much. He wanted to slip the noose a little further along, before he made a final jerk, in order to try and tighten it.

“He’s got his eye on you, Thad!” warned Smithy, whose tree happened to be better located for observation than any of the other ones appropriated by his comrades.

“Yes, and there he’s coming over to see what you mean by that string hanging down,” asserted Giraffe.

“Somebody draw his attention!” called out Thad. “Make him think you’re meaning to drop down. It will give me the chance I need to finish my job.”

“Yes, throw Bumpus down, Step Hen!” called out Giraffe. “He was the cause of all this trouble and he ought to sacrifice himself now, in order to create a diversion.”

“Keep away from me! Don’t you dare touch me, Step Hen! I’ll pull you down along with me, if you try to do that,” cried Bumpus, really alarmed.

But Allan caught the idea Thad advanced. Besides, it just happened that he was well situated for carrying it out. By going through some extravagant motions, as though about to descend, he caught the attention of the bear, which immediately shuffled over to his tree, and looked up expectantly.

Meanwhile Thad was not idle.

He saw what he had to do in order to make a sure thing of his work. Moving to one side a little, as the nature of his hold in the branches of the tree permitted, he jerked at his line until the loop actually closed tightly on the barrel of Step Hen’s rifle. After that it should not be a difficult task to pull the weapon up.

“Quick! Thad, he’s coming!” shouted the excited Giraffe.

In spite of all Allan’s cutting-up the bear seemed to think that he had better be paying more attention to what was going on elsewhere.

Thad had raised the gun from the ground. It was slowly ascending through space, and turning around as it came.

The grizzly hurried underneath, while Thad hastened to pass the cord through his fingers and when the wise old bear, seeming to understand the case, reared up to strike at the dangling rifle, he just managed to give it a tap that started it to spinning around at a lively clip.

“Oh!” gasped Giraffe, under the belief that all was lost.

But Thad had made one last drag, and even as the other uttered that exclamation the scoutmaster snatched the gun out of the air; for with that very last pull, the noose seemed to have slipped.

“Hurrah! Thad wins!” burst out from Step Hen.

“Good-bye, old Charlie!” mocked Bumpus. “Better skip out while there is time, if you know what’s good for you.”

But the bear did not seem to be that wise. He remained there, winking those wicked little eyes up at Thad, as if daring him to do his worst.

“Give it to him, Thad!” begged Giraffe, so impatient that he could hardly understand why the more careful boy should wait.

But although Thad had never up to now encountered a wild grizzly, he had heard and read a great deal about them. And thus he knew that at times such an animal can be shot full of bullets, so to speak, without killing him, so tenacious of life is the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains.

On this account, therefore, Thad wished to make all the capital possible out of the six bullets that were contained in Step Hen’s gun.

Waiting until a good opportunity presented itself, he took a quick aim, and then pulled the trigger. With the report there came a tremendous roar, so savage, so full of pent-up animal rage, that Bumpus immediately proceeded to climb up to a still higher limb of the tree in which he had found shelter.

“He’s down! No, he’s up again! Give him another, Thad! Oh! don’t I wish I had my Old Reliable here, though,” cried Giraffe.

Thad was awake to the necessity for prompt action. The bear, even though desperately wounded, was still full of fight. And there could be no telling what the maddened animal might not attempt, if given time.

Thad taking careful aim fired again.

He really felt an admiration for the hard-fighting grizzly, such as all