On their arrival at the hut Matt explained the position. He was about to remove the log that braced up the door, but Tommy’s father pulled him violently back, and gestured that it was much more convenient to shoot the animal through the chimney-hole. Matt felt a qualm of disgust and remorse. It seemed cowardly to give the poor beast that had taken refuge in his hut no chance. He leaned sullenly against the door, feeling almost like one who had betrayed the laws of hospitality, and conscious, moreover, of a strange savage sympathy with the bear in its strife with humanity. His last respect for the noble red man vanished when the two Micmacs clambered upon the low-pitched roof. They uttered “ughs” of satisfaction as they peeped over the great square hole and perceived their prey asleep. After some amiable banter of the animal they began to put their guns into position. But Tommy’s father insisted on having the glory of the deed, since he was paying for the bear with Matt’s gun, and his rival ungraciously yielded. In his cocksureness, however, Tommy’s father merely hit the bear’s shoulder. The creature started up with a fierce growl, and began biting savagely at the bleeding wound. Excited by his failure and the brute’s leap up, Tommy’s father leaned more over the hole for his second shot; but his companion, exclaiming that it was his turn now, pushed him back, and strove to get his body in front. Tommy’s father, who was now effervescing with excitement, thrust himself more forward still, and in his zeal succeeded so well that he suddenly found himself flying head-foremost into the hut, while the gun went off at random. The bullet missed, but the man struck the obfuscated creature with a thud, ricochetted off its back, and lay prostrate on the branch-strewn floor.
The sound of the fall, the explosion, the cry of dismay from the roof, informed Matt of what had happened. In a flash his sympathy went back to man. He cried to the other Indian to shoot, but the latter’s arm was shaking, and the bear, after a few seconds of bewilderment, had risen on its hind legs and stood over the fallen man growling fiercely, so that the Micmac was afraid of hitting his friend. Matt reached up impatiently for his gun, which the Micmac readily handed to him in unforeseen violation of orders, and Matt, overthrowing the door-prop with the butt end, lifted the latch and dashed in. Tommy’s father was already in the bear’s grip, the infuriated animal’s elastic fore-paws beginning to press horribly upon his ribs. Matt clapped the barrel of the gun to the bear’s ear; then he was overswept by a fearsome doubt lest the gun had been unloaded since it had left his hands. But his suspense was short. He pressed the trigger; there was a ringing explosion, and the creature bounded into the air, relaxing its hold of the Indian, upon whom it fell again in its death-agony. Matt, aided by the other Micmac, who hurried in, grunting, disentangled Tommy’s father from the writhing heap, and found him bruised and breathless, but practically uninjured. Tommy’s father vowed eternal gratitude to his rescuer, and said his life was henceforward at Matt’s disposal. The boy curtly asked for his property instead, whereupon the Indian shook his head and shrugged his shoulders in token of impotence. Rolling the bear over with a prod of his contemptuous foot, he produced his knife and started scalping and skinning the dead enemy, while his brother-in-arms lit some boughs, and cut a juicy steak from the carcass and set it to broil. The warmth was grateful, for the shadows were fast gathering and the hyperborean hours returning. A covey of bob-whites whirred past, and the weird note of a hoot-owl was borne on the bleak air.