Page:A La California.djvu/106

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80
PESCADERO TO SANTA CRUZ.

near or remote sense disrespectful of bald-headed men flashed through our hero's mind in an instant. "Now I lay me down to slee——" the forward bear was already within thirty yards of him, and before the prayer could be half finished would be upon him. Something more energetic and positive had to be done immediately. Springing to his feet in frantic despair, the San Franciscan hunter threw his arms wildly aloft, and uttered one loud, long, terrific, unearthly yell, such as an able-bodied Irish banshee might have given on a particularly rough night, when a particularly bad scion of a particularly noble house was passing in his checks at the termination of a particularly long and infamous life. The effect was instantaneous and striking. The foremost bear, startled out of his seven senses by the yell, sprang about ten feet—more or less—into the air, knocked his nearest companion off her pins as he came down, rolled over her, gathered himself up, and bolted "like forty cartloads of rock going down a chute" straight for the chaparral again, his companions following close at his heels, and never turning to see what it was which had stampeded them. As they went bouncing and crashing away into the undergrowth, our friend, utterly oblivious from the first that he had a gun within reach of his arm, turned and ran the other way with such speed as Jackson or the Deerslayer never achieved, reaching his hotel, some miles from the spot, with his garments soaked with perspiration, hair wildly disheveled, and eyes almost bursting from their sockets, only to tell the marvelous story of his adventure to