110 The Black Bear 



showing quite plainly that she thought herself badly 

 used by a superior force. But Kerfoot was hard to con- 

 vince in regard to her bluffing qualities, and while we 

 were all mancBuvring for a suitable position the cub 

 came down from the tree, joined its mother and the 

 other cub, and all three made off into the woods. 



We followed helter-skelter, and as the cubs could not 

 run very fast we finally succeeded in treeing one of them 

 again and resumed operations. This time I picked up 

 a club and by brandishing it valiantly every time the 

 bear snarled at Kerfoot, managed to reassure him 

 sufficiently to coax him up within about thirty feet of 

 her. He had a Graflex natural-history camera that 

 took a 4 X 5 plate, but had sufficient bellows to accom- 

 modate a twenty-inch lens, thus giving a very large 

 image at a comparatively considerable distance from 

 the object. In these cameras an inclined mirror, that 

 flies out of the way at the moment of exposure, enables 

 one to see the full-sized picture on the ground glass, 

 and to focus on a moving subject up to the second of 

 pressing the button. And when Kerfoot had looked 

 at the picture at a distance of thirty feet he said that 

 he thought he could get a fine head by going a bit 

 closer yet, and moved ten feet nearer. He had just 

 gotten things to his liking and was standing with the 

 long camera held at the level of his eye and his head 

 bent over the focussing hood when the bear gave a 

 vicious snort, and executed the peculiar combination 



