328 The Wilderness Hunter. 



amazement, the bear uttered a loud " wough " and charged 

 straight down on him only to fall a victim to misplaced 

 boldness. 



I am even inclined to think that there have been 

 wholly exceptional occasions when a grisly has attacked a 

 man with the deliberate purpose of making a meal of 

 him ; when, in other words, it has started on the career 

 of a man-eater. At least, on any other theory I find it 

 difficult to account for an attack which once came to my 

 knowledge. I was at Sand Point, on Pend'Oreille Lake, 

 and met some French and Meti trappers, then in town 

 with their bales of beaver, otter, and sable. One of 

 them, who gave his name as Baptiste Lamoche, had his 

 head twisted over to one side, the result of the bite of a 

 bear. When the accident occurred he was out on a trap- 

 ping trip with two companions. They had pitched camp 

 right on the shore of a cove in a little lake, and his com- 

 rades were off fishing in a dugout or pirogue. He himself 

 was sitting near the shore, by a little lean-to, watching 

 some beaver meat which was sizzling over the dying 

 embers. Suddenly, and without warning, a great bear, 

 which had crept silently up beneath the shadows of the 

 tall evergreens, rushed at him, with a guttural roar, and 

 seized him before he could rise to his feet. It grasped 

 him with its jaws at the junction of the neck and shoulder, 

 making the teeth meet through bone, sinew, and muscle ; 

 and turning, racked off towards the forest, dragging with 

 it the helpless and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men 

 in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in sight 

 of, and close to, camp. The man in the bow, seeing the 



