The two girls were blinded for an instant.

Then they saw the keeper tear open the door and disappear.

The cold air through the shattered casement was a sudden relief to their lungs, choked with sulphur and the fumes of spent powder.
In a flash they were out of the open door; and there again, with the suddenness of a panorama, they saw another picture--Paul kneeling in the middle of the clearing, taking careful aim at the retreating form of the first bear.

They saw the puff of blue smoke rise from his rifle, they heard the sharp report; and the bear rolled over on its face.
Steinmetz and the keeper were walking toward Paul.

Claude de Chauxville, standing outside his screen of brushwood, was staring with wide, fear-stricken eyes at the hut which he had thought empty.