Hunting in Many Lands 



tree and shake the bear out. It was quite dark, and Mc- 

 Masters repUed that he would not mind doing so if there 

 were enough daylight for him to see. His companions 

 continuing to banter him, he finally said, "I believe I'll 

 go up anyhow," and up he went, climbing, however — in- 

 stead of the tree the bear had ascended — a companion 

 tree which grew alongside of the other, the trunks of 

 the two not being more than a foot or so apart and the 

 branches interlaced. We soon lost sight of McMasters 

 and of the bear also ; for, as Jim climbed the bear would 

 climb too, until at last they both had reached the top of 

 their respective perches, when we heard Jim cry out, 

 "Boys, he's got to come down ; I can reach him." With 

 that he proceeded to break off a small branch of his 

 tree, and we could hear him whack the bear with it, and 

 also could hear the bear remonstrating with a very un- 

 pleasant voice, at times approaching a roar. But at last 

 the bear seemed to have made up his mind that it was 

 better to come down than stay up and be whacked with 

 a pine branch, so down he came, but not with any great 

 rapidity, stopping at every resting place, until Jim came 

 down too and gave him a little persuading. 



We could now see the action, but its dangerous features 

 were lost sight of in its amusing ones. Jim had climbed 

 into the tree down which the bear was descending, and 

 when he was not persuading the bear he was pleading 

 with us somewhat as follows: "Now, boys, don't throw 

 up here, and don't none of you hit him until he gets 

 down. If he should make up his mind to come up again 

 he'd clean me out, sure." After each speech of this sort 

 he would move down to where the bear was and apply 

 his branch, whereupon both the man and the animal 



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