He slipped down his tree in a moment, caught up the crossbow, which he had dropped in the road, and running furiously up, sent a bolt into the bear's body with a loud shout.

The bear gave a snarl of rage and pain, and turned its head irresolutely.
"Keep aloof!" cried Denys, "or you are a dead man." "I care not;" and in a moment he had another bolt ready and shot it fiercely into the bear, screaming, "Take that! take that!" Denys poured a volley of oaths down at him.

"Get away, idiot!" He was right: the bear finding so formidable and noisy a foe behind her, slipped growling down the tree, rending deep furrows in it as she slipped.

Gerard ran back to his tree and climbed it swiftly.

But while his legs were dangling some eight feet from the ground, the bear came rearing and struck with her fore paw, and out flew a piece of bloody cloth from Gerard's hose.