X 
THE BEAR 
379 
though I was going to strike him, and he was so 
completely done there wasn’t any fight in him ; 
my horse’s flanks were heaving in such a way that 
I could hardly load the two chambers that I had 
fired. I was determined to have all my six shots 
ready before I began to fire, and it was just lucky 
that I did, for I’m blessed if I could kill him. 
There he stood, regularly exhausted-like, and he took 
shot after shot, and never seemed to notice, or to care 
for anything. At last I almost touched him, when I 
fired my sixth cartridge between his shoulders, and 
he dropped stone dead. That’s all that happened, 
and I thought you wouldn’t believe me if I came 
back without a proof; so I cut him open, and took 
out his liver to show you ; and here it is.” 
Although this fine fellow thought nothing of his 
achievement, I considered it to be the most extra¬ 
ordinary feat of horsemanship that I had ever heard 
of, combined with wonderful determination. In 
the darkness of night, without a moon, to hunt 
single-handed, and to kill, a full-grown bear with a 
revolver, was in my experience an unprecedented 
triumph in shikar. 
Early on the following morning I sent for the 
bear’s skin. It proved to be a large silver-tipped, 
and a close examination exhibited the difficulties of 
the encounter during darkness. 
Eight shots had been fired from the commence¬ 
ment, to the termination by the last fatal bullet ; 
but, although Texas Bill was an excellent shot with 
his revolver, he had missed seven times, and the 
