He stepped to the side of the bear with a light elastic movement that was as unlike customary progression as his face and figure were unlike the ordinary types of humanity.

Even as he leaned upon his rifle, looking down at the prostrate animal, he unconsciously fell into an attitude that in any other mortal would have been a pose, but with him was the picturesque and unstudied relaxation of perfect symmetry.
"Hallo, Mister!" He raised his head so carelessly and listlessly that he did not otherwise change his attitude.

Stepping from behind the tree, the woman of the preceding night stood before him.

Her hands were free except for a thong of the _riata_, which was still knotted around one wrist, the end of the thong having been torn or burnt away.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair hung over her shoulders in one long black braid.
"I reckoned all along it was _you_ who shot the bear," she said; "at least some one hidin' yer," and she indicated the hollow tree with her hand.