The Happy Hooligan 113 



after we had stood there and talked for a little while, 

 we turned back toward camp. 



About half-way back we met our man Frank coming 

 down to see the bear, and just behind him came a party 

 of eight or ten people who had stopped for the night 

 at the camp. We paid no attention to this crowd 

 until, hearing a noise behind us, we turned around and 

 found the whole lot running back up the hill very much 

 frightened, and as Frank was bringing up the rear we 

 asked him, rather jokingly, what was the matter. 

 ''Gee," he answered, ''I tell you, that's a fierce old 

 bear." And we have not finished teasing him about 

 it yet. That old bear certainly knew whom to bluff, 

 and I have no doubt that the majority of the school- 

 teachers in the crowd thought themselves lucky to have 

 escaped with their heads. 



I do not mean to say that a Black Bear will not 

 fight if it is forced to. But, personally, I have never 

 seen one's patience tried to the breaking point. If you 

 chase one too closely it will take to a tree. If you 

 follow it up the trunk, it will retreat toward the top. 

 I imagine that if you kept on following it until it could 

 go no farther you would end up by getting a pretty bad 

 mauling, for it has sharp claws and tremendous muscles 

 to back them up with; but it is perfectly safe to say 

 that if you were at the top of the tree and it was half- 

 way down, you would have a hard time getting at 

 close enough quarters with it to get hurt. 



