VI Mountain Jims End 175 



that were ever heard out of Bedlam or the " Zoo," 

 coming from the canon below. I naturally imagined 

 that somebody had got my bear, or that my bear 

 had got somebody, and immediately descended in 

 great wrath to have it out with the survivor, which- 

 ever he might be. Both my suppositions were 

 wrong. When I got down I found three of the 

 " hardest cases " in the Park sitting on their horses 

 and yelling around generally to attract my attention. 

 What was it ? Why, Griff had shot Mountain Jim, 

 and he was lying bad under a clump of aspens down 

 below. Now, though I by no means loved the 

 Mountainous One (as we sometimes playfully called 

 him on account of the extraordinary altitude of his 

 lies), considering him a humbug and a scoundrel, 

 my medical instinct told me, of course, to go and do 

 the best that I could for him. I found the poor 

 wretch stretched out under a clump of silver-stemmed, 

 quivering-leaved aspens, whither he had been carried, 

 with five small bullet-wounds about the head and 

 face, and one of the bullets had most certainly 

 penetrated the cerebellum. He was prostrate, of 

 course, but I must say as calm and as plucky as any 

 man I ever saw in trouble. We took him into the 

 neighbouring log- hut, where I did all that it was 

 possible to do for him, though that was not much. 

 All the bullets (" blue whistlers," large, round shot) 

 had " gone through," except one which was embedded 

 in the bony process under the left ear, and the one 

 which had passed into the brain. One of them had 



