Page:Boys of the Fort.djvu/67

Rh there fer a whole day. I had wounded him in the leg, and in running over a brook I dropped my gun."

"How did you get away?" asked Darry.

"I didn't know what to do fust. The b'ar had me foul, and kept right at the bottom of the tree all the time. With his wounded leg he couldn't come up, and I didn't dare to go down, and there we was a-lookin' at each other, he a-growlin' and I a-sayin' all kind o' unpleasant things about him."

"Didn't you have a pistol?"

"No, all I had with me at the time was a powder-horn, a matchbox, and my pocket-knife. What to do I didn't know, and I was a-thinkin' I'd be starved out, when a thought struck me to blow him up with powder."

"Blow him up!" cried both boys.

"Thet's wot, lads blow him up. I had a handkerchief, ye see, an' into this I dumped 'bout half my powder, an' into the powder I put three matches, with the ends pointing out. Then I tied powder an' matches into a hard lump and watched my chance. There was a flat rock near the roots of the tree, and putty soon Mr. B'ar squatted on this rock. Then I let drive fer the rock, an' the powder an' matches landed good an hard, I can tell ye."