It immediately dropped on its fore legs and rushed at him. “Back, Crusoe! out of the way, pup!” shouted Dick, as his favourite was about to spring forward.
The dog retired, and Dick leaped behind a tree. As the bear passed he gave it the contents of the second barrel behind the shoulder, which brought it down; but in another moment it rose and again rushed at him. Dick had no time to load, neither had he time to spring up the thick tree beside which he stood, and the rocky nature of the ground out of which it grew rendered it impossible to dodge round it. His only resource was flight; but where was he to fly to? If he ran along the open track, the bear would overtake him in a few seconds. On the right was a sheer precipice one hundred feet high; on the left was an impenetrable thicket. In despair he thought for an instant of clubbing his rifle and meeting the monster in close conflict; but the utter hopelessness of such an effort was too apparent to be entertained for a moment. He glanced up at the overhanging cliffs. There were one or two rents and projections close above him. In the twinkling of an eye he sprang up and grasped a ledge of about an inch broad, ten or twelve feet up, to which he clung while he glanced upward. Another projection was within reach; he gained it, and in a few seconds he stood upon a ledge about twenty feet up the cliff, where he had just room to plant his feet firmly.
Without waiting to look behind, he seized his powder-horn and loaded one barrel of his rifle; and well was it for him that his early training had fitted him to do this with rapidity, for the bear dashed up the precipice after him at once. The first time it missed its hold and fell back with a savage growl; but on the second attempt it sank its long claws into the fissures between the rocks, and ascended steadily till within a foot of the place where Dick stood.
At this moment Crusoe’s obedience gave way before a sense of Dick’s danger. Uttering one of his lion-like roars, he rushed up the precipice with such violence that, although naturally unable to climb, he reached and seized the bear’s flank, despite his master’s stern order to “keep back,” and in a moment the two rolled down the face of the rock together, just as Dick completed loading.
Knowing that one stroke of the bear’s paw would be certain death to his poor dog, Dick leaped from his perch, and with one bound reached the ground at the same
