BEAR-HUNTING 



paralyzed. If so, it had none the best of me. I 

 now know that I lost an opportunity to work up a 

 New Thought story in which plain "rabbit" might 

 have been spelled with a large R. 



Bears always had a fascination for me in the ab- 

 stract, although in the concrete they have always 

 proved rather a disappointment. The ordinary bear 

 of the Middle, Eastern, and Southern States is the 

 biggest coward of all animals, unless it is the fero- 

 cious lynx Arr Noovo or the savage Sunday wolf. 

 The grizzly of the Rockies is very scarce today, 

 and he is not the grizzly of Lewis and Clark, by 

 the same -measure that the high-power rifle of today 

 is not the arm of small-bore, muzzle-loading days. 

 Taking them as they came, black, brown, red, gray, 

 pink, blue, cerise, mauve, and ecru bears, a dozen 

 or so, I presume I have had my share, though 

 never quite enough. 



It is in the spring that a hunter's fancy turns to 

 thoughts of bear, for in the spring the robes are 

 best and the bears are most easily found. One 

 spring the commanding officer in my household 

 measured off a place about ten feet square on the 

 floor, and delicately hinted that an Oriental rug 

 would do well there. It is by industry and economy 

 that we advance in the world. It promptly occurred 

 to me that it would be much more expedient to kill 



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