Boris was so exhausted with the long chase that he had hardly sufficient strength to reach the weapon and turn it against his furious pursuer. To do this he must gain ground upon the bear, which was at the instant so close behind that he could have kicked it with his heel. Summoning therefore all the energy of which he was still master, the hunted hunter filled his lungs to the full, and started to run the fastest hundred yards that he had ever covered. So swiftly did he fly over the ground that he was some twenty-five good paces in front of the bear when his hands closed upon his faithful spear, and he knew that, for the moment at least, he was saved, and that if only his strength did not fail him he should now hold his own and perhaps a little more when Bruin came to close quarters.

Twisting round with the rapidity of a spindle, Boris felt for a steady foothold for both of his feet, found it, poised his long steel-tipped wooden spear, took a long, deep breath, set his teeth, and in a moment the struggle had commenced. The bear, slightly rising on his hind legs to seize and hug his foe, threw himself with a loud roar of rage upon Boris, impaling himself as he did so upon the cruel point of the spear. This was a critical moment. Strong as he was, and firmly as he had taken his stand, the shock of the huge brute's rush all but knocked poor weary Boris off his legs and nearly tore his muscular arms from their sockets. The bear, mad with pain and rage, pressed in its fury upon the stout spear, and bit and tore at the good oak until the splinters flew and the whole spear shook and trembled in the hunter's grasp.

Breathless and weary as he was, Boris nevertheless held his own, and for some time budged not an inch.

There is a limit, however, to the powers of the hardest muscles and of the stoutest hearts, and the present tension was more than the bravest and the strongest could support for any length of time. Boris was evidently tiring. Had he been fresh when this great wrestling match began, he would long since have made an irresistible rush, pushed the monster over backwards, and despatched him with repeated digs of the spear, as he had many a time treated bears before. But Boris was weary with his long struggle. He could not hold on much longer, but in desperation he still clung to his quivering spear, and pushed with all his might and determination against his giant enemy.

And now his head began to swim, and his eyes grew hot and dimmed, and there was a sound in his ears as of waters that rushed in and overwhelmed him. Still his senses did not desert him, nor his nerve. As he became conscious that his strength was failing him he became the more determined to hold out, and with a hoarse shout of defiance he pulled himself together for one supreme effort. His failing grasp clutched tighter at the shaft; his stiff and aching feet planted themselves yet more firmly in their grip of the foothold from which they had not budged by a hair's-breadth; his tightened muscles tightened themselves yet more as he bore upon the shaft, and forced it by sheer strength of will a couple of inches further towards victory. The bear tottered, his eyes rolled and his tongue showed between his teeth, and for a moment it seemed that Boris had won the battle. Now it is anybody's game! For an instant and another neither bear nor man has the advantage. Then the bear rallies. Growling, sputtering, roaring, the monster slowly recovers his lost ground, then gains an inch, and another. Boris feels faint and dizzy; his strength is failing, his grasp relaxing. Still he fights on; but it is useless now. His brave feet, that have held their own so long, give way; his muscles too, they have made a good fight, but they cannot hold out longer—they are relaxing; his fingers are loosening their hold upon the shaft; his eyes are so dim now that they cannot see the monster who is falling upon him to slay him; he is vanquished, he is giving ground rapidly; in another instant he will fall, and die. The bear will die too, of course; that thought will be his dying consolation.

A shout of encouragement behind him, and the sound of rushing feet! "Hold tight there just one minute more!" somebody cries; and automatically the stiffened fingers tighten themselves, and the feet grip the ground. Then a fresh hand grasps the shaft; two powerful feet plant themselves in the place where the failing ones have stood; and as the wearied and vanquished Boris falls fainting to the earth, the new arrival bears upon that stout staff with a force which even the mighty bear cannot withstand.

Back goes the bear by inches—now he is tottering—another shout and an irresistible rush forwards, and he is down, fighting and tearing to the last as a bold king of the forest should.

One more dig into the dying monster, a kick upon the prostrate carcass with the long, heavy Russian boot, and then the stranger turns to look after poor Boris. But first he wipes his hands upon a tuft of purple-fruited bilberry leaves, and from an inner pocket of his somewhat rich-looking kaftan, or tunic, he produces a silver-tipped flagon of Russian spirits. This he puts to the lips of Boris, who soon revives under the treatment, and sits up, dazed, to stare around with his hand to his eyes. First he fixes a long look upon the prostrate bear and the spear lying beside it; then he catches sight of the stranger, and stares long and fixedly at him. At last he says, "Are you St. Boris come to save me in answer to my call?"

The stranger burst into a loud, jovial guffaw.

"Bless your heart," he shouted, "I'm not a saint! Very far from it, I'm afraid. I'm only a man, like yourself."

"A man indeed!" said Boris; "and such a man as I have not seen the likeness of—well, since I last looked in the looking-glass!"

Boris made this remark in perfectly good faith, and without the slightest intention of paying himself a compliment. He knew well enough that he was by many degrees the strongest and finest-looking man in the country side, and by comparing the stranger with himself he merely offered honest testimony to the magnificent appearance of the latter. Nor was his admiration misplaced, for a finer-looking young fellow than he who now bent over Boris was rarely seen. Scarcely more than a boy—he was about the same age as Boris himself—the stranger was tall and robust, and straight as a young pine; taller than Boris, and broader too, though not more athletic-looking. His face was handsome and powerful, and his black hair curled in masses over a wide forehead and bold, rather cruel eyes. Boris gazed in admiration at this magnificent specimen of humanity—it was a new sensation to him to see any one physically superior to himself.

"You made a good fight," said the stranger, guffawing once more over the last speech of Boris; "but though you seem to have a fairly good opinion of yourself, that bear would have been lying on the top of you by this time if I had not come up in the nick of time. I watched the fight for some minutes. You have pluck, I am pleased to observe. What is your name?"

"Boris the Bear-Hunter," replied that worthy.

"Ha, ha! Boris the Bear-Hunted, you mean," laughed the stranger. "Well, I should like to know more of you, if you will. Come and see me to-morrow morning at Archangel, and we'll have a chat."

"Very well, barin" (gentleman), said Boris, feeling, in spite of his own usually defiant independence of spirit, that here was one who must of necessity command and be obeyed; "for I see you are a barin by your kaftan. What are you called, and where shall I seek you?"

"Petka, and sometimes Petrushka, is my name," said the big youth; "and you may ask for me at the burgomaster's house in the town. You will hear of me there till eleven to-morrow; after that I take ship for a sail abroad. And now I will leave you and mishka[1] yonder to take care of one another. Beware, while you skin him, that he doesn't jump up and skin you. He may be shamming while I am here, you see; but he has no cause to be afraid of you."

With which gentle sarcasm and another jovial laugh the tall youth departed, leaving Boris to reflect upon the extreme good fortune which had sent him the right man at the right moment to extract him from the tightest fix he had ever succeeded in getting himself into during the whole course of his nineteen summers.