A Mountain Fraud 
It had taken Hanna and me three hours’ hard 
climbing to get near the summit, where we 
expected to find some of the bull elk we had 
heard whistling, and the tracks of which we 
saw fresh and plentiful as we ascended. 
We were moving very quietly along the 
game trail, Hanna ahead, when he sud- 
denly stopped and pointed about seventy-five 
yards in front, where we saw the two cubs 
playing on some rocks overhanging a deep 
gulch. We fired nearly simultaneously. My 
cub dropped dead, while Hanna’s, badly 
wounded, started up the mountain howling 
his best. It was not ten seconds before the 
mother appeared, not fifteen yards ahead of 
us, charging down the trail looking as big as 
a horse and growling savagely. Hanna, be- 
ing a step in front of me, fired, and the bear 
dropped, but was up in an instant and came 
straight on. He shot again, and again she 
dropped, but was up like a rubber ball. The 
third time the cartridge failed to explode. 
The bear turned a little out of the trail, evi- 
dently bewildered, but as vicious as ever. As 
she passed me, within ten feet, I shot, and the 
ball pierced the heart, but it required two more 
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