Big Pete and I spent several weeks in our charming little camp at the lower end of the park, for my guide decided that despite the recent presence of the wild hunter, here would be a good place to get a shot at some black-tail deer. In fact we saw signs of those animals all about and my guide was only looking for fresh indication to start out on our last hunt before we made our way deeper into the wilderness.

On the third day of our stay I was returning to camp with my shotgun over my shoulder and a brace of sage grouse in my hand, when I came upon Big Pete in a swail about a mile from camp. He was bending low and examining fresh signs when he saw me.

“Howdy, kid, here’s some doin’s. Shall we foller him?”“Of course, Pete; what are we here for, the mountain air?” I answered.

“No,” answered Pete, in his deep, low voice, “we’re here for game,” and off he started, but slowly and with great caution. I felt impatient, but restrained myself, saying nothing and continued to follow my big guide who now moved with the most painstaking care. Not a twig broke beneath his moccasins as with panther-like step and crouching form he led me through a lot of young trees over a rocky place until we struck a small spring with a soft muddy margin. Here Pete came to a sudden halt. I asked him why he did not go on, and he pointed to a ledge of rock that ran up the mountain side diagonally with a flat, natural roadbed on top, graded like a stage road but unlike a traveled road, ending in a bunch of underwood and brush about a hundred yards ahead.

Above the ledge of the rocks was a steep declivity of loose shale sprinkled over with large and small boulders of radically different formations, and in no manner resembling the friable, uncertain bed upon which they rested.

These boulders undoubtedly showed the result of the grinding and polishing of an ancient, slow-moving glacier, but some other force had deposited them in the present position.

“He’s in tha’,” whispered Pete.

“Who, the wild mountain man?” I asked.

“No,” answered my guide, “th’ grizzly.”

“The what?” I almost shouted.

“Th’ grizzly,” answered Pete; “what do you think we’ve been following?”

“Black-tailed deer,” I said softly, with my eyes glued on the thicket.

“Well, tenderfoot, here’s the trail of that tha’ deer, and he hain’t been gone by here mor’n nor a week ago, nuther.”

I looked and there in the soft mud was the print of a foot, a human-looking foot, but for the evenness in the length of the toes and the sharpness and length of the toe nails. Yes, there was another difference, and that was the size. It was the footprint of a savage Hercules, the track of an enormous grizzly bear, and the soft mud that had dripped from the big foot was still undried on the leaves and grass when Pete pointed it out to me.

“Well, Pete, don’t forget your promise that I am to have first shot at all big game,” I whispered with my best effort at coolness, but my heart was thumping against my ribs at a terrific rate.

“But—why, bless you old man!” I whispered excitedly as I looked at my gun, “I am armed only with a shotgun.”

“Tha’s all right,” replied the big trapper complacently; then, with a quick motion, he whipped out his keen-edged knife and snatching one of my cartridges he severed the shell neatly between the two wads which separated the powder and shot; that is, a wad in each piece of the cartridge was exposed by the cut.

Guided by the faint longitudinal seam where the edges of the colored paper join on the shell, Big Pete carefully fitted the two parts of the cartridge together exactly as they were before being cut apart. Breaking my gun, he slipped the mutilated ammunition into the unchoked barrel.

“Tha’,” he grunted, “tha’s better than a bullet at short range, an’ll tar a hole in old Ephraim big enough to put your arm through.”

He cut two more in the same manner, saying, “Be darned kerful not to get excited and put them in your choke barl, or tha’ may be trouble.”

Hunting a grizzly with a shotgun and bird shot was not my idea of safe sport, but I was too much of a moral coward to acknowledge to Pete that I was frightened. Pete examined his gun, ran his finger over the cartridges in his belt, and went through all the familiar motions which to him were unconscious but always foretold danger ahead.

“You drap on your prayer hinges behind that tha’ nigger head,” said Pete, “and you will have a dead shot at the brute, an’ I’ll go up and roll a stone down the mountain side and follow it as fast as I kin, so as to be ready to help you if you need it; but you ought to drap him at first shot at short range. Yer must drap him, yer must or I allow tha’ll be a right smart of a scrap here, and don’t yer forget it!”

“This is no Christmas turkey shooting, young feller, so look sharp,” and with a noiseless tread Pete vanished in the wood, while I with beating heart and bulging eyes watched the thicket at the end of the ledge. I had not long to wait before I heard a blood-curdling yell and then crash! crash! crash! came a big boulder tearing down the mountain side. It reached a point just over the thicket, struck a small pine tree, broke the tree and leaped high into the air, then crashed into the middle of the brush.

Following with giant leaps came Big Pete Darlinkel down the rocky declivity, but I only looked that way for one instant, then my eyes were again fixed on the thicket, and in my excitement I arose to a standing position. There was but a momentary silence after the fall of the boulder before I heard the rustling of sticks and leaves, saw the top of the bushes sway as some heavy body moved beneath, then there appeared a head, and what a head it was! Bigger than all outdoors! I aimed my gun, but my body swayed and the end of my shotgun described a large circle in the air. I knew that my position was serious, but my nerves played me false.

I had never before faced a grizzly. I heard Big Pete’s voice calling to me to drop behind the rock, but I only stood there with a dogged stupidity, trying to aim my gun at a mark which seemed to me as big almost as a barn-door.

I heard Pete give a sudden cry then there was a rattle of stones and dirt on the ledge in front of the mountain of brownish hair that was advancing in sort of side leaps or bounds like a big ball.

The bear came to a sudden stop, and to my horror I saw the form of my friend shoot over the edge of the overhanging rock right in the path of the grizzly. It all flashed through my mind in a moment. Pete in his haste to reach me had lost control of himself and slid with the rolling stones and dirt over the mountain side, a fall of at least twenty-five feet!

Instantly my nerve returned and I rushed madly up the incline to rescue my companion. I bounded between the branches of some stout saplings, they parted as my body struck them but sprung together again before my leg had cleared the V-shaped opening.

My foot was imprisoned and I fell with a heavy thud on my face. For an instant I was dazed, but even in my dazed state I was fully conscious of Pete’s impending peril, and I kicked and struggled blindly to free myself. My gun had been flung from my hand in my fall and was out of my reach. Then to my horror I heard the howl the wolf gives when game is in sight, and even half blind as I was I saw dark, dog-like forms sweep by me; I heard the scream of an eagle; I heard a snarling and yelping, the sounds of a struggle—I ceased to kick, wiped the blood from my eyes and looked ahead.

There lay Big Pete Darlinkel, dead or unconscious, and within ten feet of him stood the giant bear surrounded by a vicious pack of gaunt red-mouthed wolves. The bear made a rush and a shadow passed over the ground; I heard the sound of a large body rushing swiftly through the air, and an immense eagle struck the bear like a thunderbolt; at the same instant the wolves attacked him from all sides; then there was a whistle keen and clear; the wolves retreated; the bird again soared aloft; the bear made several passes in the air in search of the bird, fell forward again on all fours, rose on its hind legs and killed a wolf with one sweep of its great paw.

The bear now made a dash at the giant leader of the pack, only to fall forward, dead, with its ugly nose across Big Pete’s chest.Then I remembered hearing the crack of a rifle, and knew that the Wild Mountain Man had saved our lives. I tried to rise but found my ankle so badly sprained that I could not stand on it.

Suddenly a low voice with a hint of an Irish accent said, “Sit down, stranger, while I look to your mate,” and I saw the tall lithe figure of a man clothed in buckskin bending over Pete.

“Only stunned, friend,” said he, and I heard no more. The blow on my head, combined with the pain from my ankle was too much for me, and now that the danger was over it was a good time to faint, and I took advantage of it.

How long I remained unconscious I do not know, but when my eyes opened again it was night; through the interlacing boughs overhead the stars were shining brightly, my head was neatly bandaged and so was my foot and ankle. I could hear our horses cropping grass near by. I raised my head and there lay Pete; he was alive I knew by his snores that issued from his nose, and we were in our own camp; but—what are those animals by our camp fire? Wolves! gaunt, shaggy wolves!

I hastily arose to a sitting posture, but my alarm subsided when in the dim light of the fire I could trace the outline of another man’s figure, and on a stick close to the stranger’s head roosted a giant bird.

Could it be that this wild man of the mountain—possibly my own father—was camping with us?