Did you hear that ?" From some point not very far off came the report of a rifle, though whether it was the weapon of Hank Hazletine or one of the Indians that had been discharged, neither could guess.
"Somebody else is in luck, and I don't see why we should not----" Before Fred could finish his sentence both heard the rustling of bushes behind them.

They turned on the instant, and saw a sight which held them transfixed, for never had they expected to view anything of the kind.
They had read and heard much of grizzly bears.

They knew they grew to an enormous size, and are the most formidable animals found in the great West, but had they been told that there were such monsters as the one before them they could not have believed it had it been related by Hazletine himself.
To Jack and Fred he seemed fully four times the size of the largest black bear they had ever seen in any zoological garden.

Had his legs been longer, Fred Greenwood would have pronounced him the equal of Jumbo himself.
Where this Colossus among beasts had come from it was impossible to say, but the terrifying fact was self-evident that he was advancing to attack the boys! He must have caught sight of them as they sat on the rock with their backs toward him, and, angered at the intrusion, he was sweeping down upon them like a cyclone, furious and determined to crush them out of existence.
[Illustration: "He was sweeping down upon them like a cyclone."] The gait of the animal was awkward, but speedier even than the youths suspected.

He swung along with a swaying motion, and his claws, striking the flinty rocks as he passed over them, rattled like iron nails.