TRAPPING AND BEE HUNTING. 177 



was behind somewhere on the line, but while I stood listening he 

 came on in great haste. He had heard the same noise and was 

 hurrying up to inquire what it was. 



I told him that I was unable to tell just what it was, but was 

 afraid that some dog had got caught in the trap as the sound 

 came from the direction in which the trap was. Smoky said that 

 it was a different noise than he had ever heard a doj make. 



I told Smoky that I feared that it was some hound that was 

 in the trap and was making the pitiful sort of a howl and that we 

 must hurry on and get him out of the trap. When we were half 

 way down the side of the hill, the noise ceased, but I could now 

 see that the noise came from some distance farther down the run 

 than where the trap had been set and I knew that no dog could 

 move the trap and clog. We now went a little more quietly. I 

 soon got sight of Bruin rolling and tumbling in a bunch of small 

 birch saplings where the trap clog was fast, good and stout. 



Smoky had not got his eye onto the bear yet, when I stopped 

 and pointed in the direction of the bear and said, "Smoky, there 

 is the gentleman that you have been so anxious to see." Smoky 

 had not yet got his eye onto the bear and he said, "That's no 

 darned dog that makes that noise. What is it? I don't see any- 

 thing." "No, Smoky, it is no dog ; neither is it a porky ; it is a bear 

 this time all right." 



I pointed at the clump of yellow birches and said, "Don't you 

 see him down in the gulch there?" When Smoky got his eye on the 

 bear, you should have seen them sparkle. This was the first bear 

 that Smoky had ever seen outside of captivity. When I told Smoky 

 that we would go up close to the bear and he (Smoky) should 

 shoot it, he again reached the gun to me and again insisted that I 

 should shoot it, saying that he would surely miss it, the same as 

 he declared in the case of the porcupine. I told Smoky that he 

 had plenty of cartridges and that it would be some time before it 

 would be too dark to see to shoot and that he must shoot the bear. 

 It took a great deal of urging to get Smoky to shoot, he declaring 

 all the time that he knew he would miss it. 



12 



