CHAPTER I.
LARRY AND WHARTON

"I'll follow him to the right, and you, Larry, go to the left; we'll have him then, sure."

"All right; it's mesilf that will bate ye, fur all ye're the swiftest runner in Kintucky."

"There isn't a minute to lose; move faster, Larry!"

"Do you attind to your own business, and lave Larry Murphy to himsilf."

The words were uttered quickly, for the two youths were eager and excited. They had caught sight of an enormous bear a few minutes before, as he lumbered into the canebrake in the direction of the torrent which swept furiously toward the Ohio. The young Irishman happened to be a few paces in advance of his companion, Wharton Edwards, and took a flying shot at the brute. Whether he struck him or not was uncertain. The probabilities were that, despite his skill with the rifle, he only scratched his bulky body, or missed him altogether. Before Wharton could bring his weapon to bear, bruin was beyond reach for the time.

It was at this juncture that the fleet-footed youth bounded to the side of his Irish friend and urged him to hurry to the left, while he circled in the other direction. One of them must head off the game, and it mattered little which did it provided it was done.

Larry Murphy was as ardent in his pursuit as his comrade, and was hopeful of getting the prize away from him. Pausing, therefore, only long enough to exchange the words quoted, he was off like a deer.

"That young man houlds a high opinion of himsilf," he muttered, as he crashed forward, "and I've saan worse fellys than Whart Edwards. He can bate all creation running, but I'm hoping that he may thrip his feet so as to give mesilf a show – "

It was poetical justice, perhaps, that the fate which the young Irishman wished might overtake his friend claimed him for his own, for, while the words were in his mouth, a wire-like vine on the ground did the mischief. It wound round his ankle like an angry black snake, and he sprawled forward on his hands and knees, his gun flying several feet from his hands.

"Bad luck to it!" he growled, climbing to his feet; "that's just the sthyle I used to thrip up the spalpeens. I'm onsartin whether me neck is broke off or not, but I'll have to lave it to find out till this little job is over."

The fall was so violent that he limped for a few paces, and his speed was lessened; but the stream was not far off, and the rugged lad was quick to rally from his discomfiture.

"Begorrah, but I've got the laugh on Whart," he exclaimed, a minute later, as he caught sight of a dark object among the trees; "that shot of mine landed the beast, and knowing that it's mesilf that's entitled to him, he has left Wharton and turned off there to wait for me to finish him."

If this quaint faith were genuine, Larry did not trust it farther than he was compelled to. Instead of waiting till he could draw nearer and secure a truer shot, he stopped abruptly, brought his heavy rifle to a level, sighted quickly but carefully, and let fly.

There was no doubt about his having hit the mark this time. He was a good shot, and the distance was too slight for him to miss. Forgetting the law of the hunter, which requires him to reload his discharged gun before moving from his tracks, Larry lowered his weapon, and driving his broad honest face through the wreath of smoke before it could lift from the muzzle of his rifle, he dashed forward toward the game to which he was sure he had just given the finishing touch.

In his excitement, and with his partly obscured view, he did not observe that the bear remained immovable. If he had noticed it, he would have concluded that the beast had been mortally wounded by the first shot and had collapsed while on the way to the stream of water.

"Now Whart will be filled wid jilousy whin he finds that the bear surrindered to me. Had it been him that come in sight of the beast he wouldn't have stopped, but obsarving that it was mesilf, he threw up his hands and – "

Larry paused in dismay. Crashing through the brush, he stopped close to his supposed prize, and found that, instead of its being the game he had in mind, it was the lower portion of an immense tree that had probably lain for years on the ground. It bore some resemblance to a prostrate animal, but the youthful hunter never could have made the mistake except for his flurried condition.

"Wurrah, wurrah, now, but that was a bad miss," he muttered, grinning at his own blunder. "I don't see any necessity for acquainting Whart wid all the sarcumstances, but if the stump doesn't say anything about it, I'll hold me pace."

The slip took away from the youth about all the hope he had felt until then of bagging the bear. He knew at the time that young Edwards gave him the better chance, for it was just like the magnanimous fellow to do that thing, and Larry had lost it through his own stupidity.

He listened for a few moments, uncertain which way to move or turn. There seemed little use in trying to regain his lost opportunities, but the doughty fellow mortally hated to give up the peculiar contest without another effort.

He could hear the dull roar of the torrent as it poured over the falls only a short way off, and he fancied once that he detected the rush of some swiftly-moving body through the wood. Of this, however, he could not be certain, because of the interfering noise of the stream.

"Whist, now, but I forgot the same!" he suddenly added, as he recalled that it was an empty weapon which he held in his hand.

"S'pose now that that cratur should turn 'round to make my acquaintance; I would have to ask him to have the kindness to wait awhile until I could get the gun in shape, and he would be mane 'nough to objict."

Despite Larry's fondness for talking, either with a companion or himself, and despite the apparent absurdity of many things he said, he wasted no time when it was of value, and he committed few errors of judgment.

The proper amount of powder was poured from the unstopped horn into the palm of his hand and sent rattling down the inclined barrel of his heavy gun. Then a bullet, clasped in a small square of oiled cloth, was rammed tightly upon the charge; the yellow flint was drawn back and the pan filled with the black grains; then the hammer was carefully lowered, and the old-fashioned weapon was ready for use.

At that moment the report of a rifle broke the stillness, and the startled Larry, glancing around, exclaimed in a guarded undertone:

"I b'leave Whart is in trouble."

CHAPTER II.
ON THE BRINK

Meanwhile young Edwards found himself a stirring actor in a stirring series of events.

He set out with all the ardor of a young hunter to bring down the bear, which was the most enormous one he had ever seen in the Kentucky wilds. His fondness for his jovial companion led him to give him what seemed to be the best chance to secure him; and it may be said that, had the situations of the youths been reversed, bruin would have quickly fallen a victim to the prowess of the young Kentuckian. But fate made a turn of the wheel of fortune of which neither dreamed.

Wharton Edwards possessed wonderful fleetness of foot, and counted on no trouble in running down the lumbering beast; but when he struck the point where he ought to have been visible, he was not in sight.

The acute hearing of the youth, however, told him where the bear was plunging through the undergrowth. It was in the direction of the stream, and fearful that he would escape him altogether, Wharton took up the pursuit with all the energy at his command.

The momentary pause had given the bear an advantage which he used with a sagacity worthy of a more intelligent creature than he. Without turning to the right or left, he swung ponderously along until he reached the edge of the torrent, into which he tumbled like a rock falling down the side of a mountain.

"I've got you now!" was the exultant exclamation of the youth, who reached the point where bruin had disappeared within ten seconds afterwards.

An exasperating state of affairs confronted him. The high, rocky bluff on each side of the swift current shut out all view of the water within two or three yards of the side on which the spectator happened to stand. Whether instinct led the bear to adopt the course he did is uncertain, but it is hardly credible, since his species are well known to be stupid; but, be that as it may, this specimen, instead of making for the other bank, kept so near to the one from which he had leaped that young Edwards could not see him. The only way in which he could gain a view of him was by lying down on his face and peering over.

He had no time to do this, besides which, under the circumstances, it was almost impossible to gain a shot at the swimming bear.

The presumption was that he would make for the other bank in quest of some opening by which to leave the water, but Wharton, in his eagerness, was unwilling to count upon that.

"If I were upon the other side," was his thought, as he hurried nervously along the bluff, seeking to keep pace with the rushing current, "I would have him just where I wanted him. But I shall lose him, for there is no way to get across – yes there is, and I'll do it, sure as a gun."

A hundred yards below, and quite near the falls, the bluffs approached each other so closely that he was sure he could leap from one to the other. Thus in a bound he could place himself in the best position to shoot the game against which he began to feel a resentment because of the manner in which it baffled him.

Had young Edwards been more familiar with his immediate surroundings, or less enthusiastic in his pursuit of the prize, he would have hesitated, and, adopting the good old adage, looked before he leaped; but he was carried away by the excitement of the moment, and did that which no one would have been quicker than he, under other circumstances, to condemn.

Running rapidly along the bluff, and parallel with the course of the stream, he reached the narrow portion upon which he had fixed his eye, gave it a glance, and decided that by no great effort he could leap to the corresponding bluff on the opposite side.

And beyond a doubt he would have succeeded had he used only ordinary precaution, but he was in dread lest the bear should escape him. The falls were but a short way below, and though the raging waters were likely to finish him, that of itself would spoil everything. No hunter likes to see another take his game out of his hands, and he viewed such a loss through the falls in the same light. His blood was up, and he meant to secure the animal if it was "in the wood."

Stepping hastily back for a couple of paces, he gathered himself, ran the distance, and, concentrating his strength in the effort, leaped toward the opposite bluff.

The instant he left the ledge he saw to his horror that he was going to fall. A leaper or runner always feels what is coming before the crisis is upon him, and Wharton Edwards knew he had made an awful miscalculation.

With the desperation of despair he flung his rifle from him at the instant of leaping, and when it was too late to withdraw. It landed on the rocks, and the impact of the hammer caused its discharge, the ball, by a singular concurrence of circumstances, passing within a few inches of the owner's face.

It was only for a passing breath that the youth was in the air, but it seemed to him he was held suspended for several minutes over the raging waters. He struck only a few inches short, but those few inches were fatal. His chest and lower part of the body collided violently with the solid wall, and his hands were thrown over the surface on which he had hoped and expected to place his feet.

He clutched fiercely to save himself, and had there been anything to grasp must have succeeded; but there was nothing, and, rebounding fully a foot, he went down into the torrent twenty feet below. As if fate meant to dally with and mock him, he splashed within a few feet of the bear, who, with a snuff of fear, turned away and began a wild effort to swim against the current. The brute had become aware of the roaring falls close at hand, and saw the trap in which he was caught, and from which it was impossible to extricate himself until, as may be said, he was almost on the brink of the falls.

A short distance from the plunge was a gap in the bluff, where the ground was only a few inches above the surface of the water. If the brute should hold himself close to the bank on that side until this favoring point was reached, he could save himself.

And he did, though little credit belonged to him for the feat. Like the stupid creature that he was, he continued furiously striving to swim against the current, and without stemming it in the least; but the same blind instinct kept him clawing at the rocks on the side from which he had leaped, and thus held him in the only position which gave the slightest hope.

All at once the beam-like claws struck the rocky bottom. The water quickly shallowed. By a prodigious effort he checked his swift downward progress – then he secured a foothold – his massive, shaggy body heaved up from the water – he plunged heavily to one side, and, with another mighty putting forth of his strength, walked out upon the solid earth and was safe.

Beyond peradventure, Wharton Edwards would have done equally well had the opportunity been given him to study for a few seconds his perilous surroundings. He would have been quick to see the opening through which his intended prize escaped, and the gorge was so narrow that he could readily have swam across to it in the few moments at his command; but the youth was in a hapless situation.

He landed against the bluff with such violence that the breath was driven from his body, and when he struck the water he was senseless. The rush of the chilling current, as he shot below the surface, partly revived him, and he made an instinctive effort at self-preservation. The blow, however, had been severe, and his brain was in a whirl the next moment, the torrent carrying him with great swiftness toward the falls.

Larry Murphy was closer to the stream than he had supposed, while reloading his rifle. The report of his friend's rifle gave him the necessary guidance, and he dashed over the intervening distance at the top of his speed.

A minute later he peered over the bluff, and, without seeing the bear, which was almost beneath him, saw the head and shoulders of his friend, who had come to the surface a few seconds before.

"Ye blundering spalpeen, that's no place to go in swimming!" called the frightened youth, with no suspicion of the mishap that had occurred.

Undecided what to do, and yet unable to stand idle, Larry ran along the edge of the bluff, and a minute later saw to his amazement the bear emerge and shake his dripping coat. It would have been easy to shoot him down, for there could not have been a fairer target; but the youth had no thought of bagging game in those terrible moments, and he bestowed hardly a glance at the brute.

A second look at young Edwards told him that something was wrong.

"Swim toward me!" shouted Larry, loud enough for his clear voice to be heard above the thunder of the waters.

He had bounded headlong down the sloping bluff, and then off into the open low space, which offered the only hope. It was a high leap, but in his excitement he did not notice it.

"Swim hard, ould felly, or it'll be too late – hivin save me, but he's drowning!"

Wharton's head was dipping below the surface, and his arms had ceased the feeble struggles they made a short time before. The youth was really drowning.

He was now so nearly opposite the opening in the bluff, and so near the plunge of waters, that had he been in the full possession of his senses and strength he could have swam the space, brief as it was, only by the most desperate efforts. In his senseless condition he could not accomplish it, of course, had he been in water as still as a mill pond.

Larry Murphy saw and comprehended all this in the twinkling of an eye. He knew that if he stood where he was it would be to see his loved friend die, and if he plunged in after him both would go over the falls, with possibly one chance in a thousand of their escape.

And did he, while quickly weighing the chances, hesitate?