72 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

be a party to what he considered little short of suicide,
When the monster, which had never as much as
suspected the presence of the travellers lying in wait
for him, was at the proper distance, John stood up in
the frail craft and fired.

“Too high!” cried out the two other Indians.’

At the same moment, the brute sent forth an
unearthly growl. In one bound, just as if he had been
on the ground, he rose up in the air, squatted on his
posterior as if surveying the situation, and his arms
immediately did the act of grasping a prey. Then,
having perceived the enemy, he started vigorously to
swim towards him.

Another shot: too low this time!®

‘‘Let us go! let us go!’’ entreated Thomas.

But the priest was obdurate. He would not think
of such a thing. Faithful John sent out a third bullet;
the beast lowered his big long head into the water,
now blood red.

‘Hurrah! let us catch him,” exclaimed Father
Morice.

‘Wait, do wait,’’ protested his crew. “A grizzly
is not killed because his brains happen to have been
visited by a bullet,’’® they remarked.

As a matter of fact, in a few seconds the monster
had lifted up his awful grinning mug, and was madly
beating the water with his terrible paws and furiously
making for his assailants. But from the irregularity
of his movements it was evident that John’s shot had
blinded him, and that he did no longer know where to

7 Will it be believed that the Indians profess to see a bullet in transit
through the air? At any rate, they always tell you where or what it hit.

® The oscillations of the small craft rendered it impossible to take a
steady aim.

* In the present case, the projectile had gone through one ear and got
out of the other.