He mechanically drew his knife
from its pocket and flourished it at the advancing bear. Bruin cared as
little for steel as for rope. He came on with a mighty growl.
Roldan gave one rapid glance about. There was not even a tree in sight.
From his point of departure an object seemed approaching, but it was too
dark to tell as yet whether it was a horseman or another bear. The brute
was almost on him, panting mightily. All the senses between Roldan's
skeleton and his skin concentrated in the determination to live. He
sprang forward and plunged his long knife into the protruding injected
eye of the bear, then leaped aside, his dripping knife in his hand, and
danced about the maddened beast with the agility of a modern prize-
fighter. The bear, too, danced, as if obsessed by some infernal music;
and the skipping, and leaping, and dodging, and waltzing of these two
would have been ludicrous had it not been a matter of life and horrid
death. Through it all Roldan was vaguely conscious of approaching
hoofbeats, but there was no room in his consciousness for hope or
despair. He was not even aware that he was panting as if his lungs and
throat were bursting, nor even that his vision was a trifle blurred from
constant and rapid change of focus and surcharged veins.
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