American Big-Game Hunting 
rock, and then looked up over at the bears. 
Too far to shoot with any certainty, and I said 
to Woody, “I must get closer.” And so back 
we crawled. 
Making a little detour we bobbed up again, 
not serenely, for the wind was blowing on the 
backs of our necks straight as an arrow to 
where the bears were. But we were a little 
higher up on the ridge than they and our 
taint must have gone over them, for when I 
looked up again one of them was chewing 
a savory morsel, and the other was on his 
hind legs blinking at the sun, which was just 
breaking through the clouds. Wiping the 
snow and drops of water and slush from our 
rifles and sights, and with a whispered advice 
from Woody not to be in a hurry if they came 
toward us, but to reserve fire in order to make 
sure work,— for no sheltering tree awaited us 
as a safe retreat, nothing but snowy ridges 
for miles,—I opened the ball with the young 
lady who was sitting down. 
She dropped her bone, clapped one of her 
paws to her ribs, and to my happiness waltzed 
down the snow-bank. As she now seemed 
to be out of the dance, I turned to her brother, 
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