But the fear of such an event caused Francois to put forth all his energies; and, encouraged by the shouts of Basil and Lucien, he held on manfully.

The bear, after a while, seeing he could not shake him off, gave it up; and again tried his strength upon the trees that had been climbed by the others.

This ended as before; except that the bear completely skinned off the bark as high as he could reach, and made such an impression upon the trunks with his teeth and claws, that the boys feared he might take it into his head to cut down the trees altogether.

He could easily have accomplished this; but, fortunately for them, the grizzly bear is not gifted with reasoning faculties, else their fate would have been a terrible one indeed.
When he found, at length, that he could neither drag down the trees, nor shake the boys out of them, he gave up the attempt; and for a time walked from one to the other, backwards and forwards, like a sentry, now and then uttering a loud "sniff," and at intervals growling fiercely.
At length he stretched his huge body along the ground, and appeared to sleep! What had become of the female and the cub?
Had both fallen by the shots fired at them?
Neither had as yet made their appearance on the summit-- for the boys from their perch could see every inch of its surface.

They were still in the ravine then; but whether dead or alive could not be determined.