"GHOOMING" FOR BEARS 87 



Pigs have a certain way of walking. "Sister Mary" 

 walked like that perhaps. Deer have another. Members 

 of the family Felts do not when wandering at night pick 

 out the noisiest heaps of dried leaves and tramp heavily 

 therein. It is plainly a bear therefore that is making, 

 openly and fearlessly, that loud crashing under a very big 

 spreading banyan tree to the left of the open space round 

 the well. There are one or two tussocks of grass beside 

 the little pathway ; behind one of these we sink down in a 

 sitting position. Fifty yards away a black thing had just 

 emerged from the banyan tree's shadow. 



The black object was the head of a big male bear, and 

 a very peculiar effect the moonlight had as it fell on this 

 one portion of his frame, over the edge of the shading 

 branches. 



Gradually the object increased in size, swelled, grew 

 taller, and out into the moonlight waddled the bear him- 

 self. His big incurved paws came marching bandy-legged 

 across the bare grass, and his uncouth lurching bulk threw 

 a long black shadow on the yellow ground in front as he 

 advanced steadily. 



K Do bears charge at night ? " was a question that I 

 remember occurred with lightning speed at that moment. 



" Why not ? " came the mental reply. " They are not bad 

 at it sometimes during the day, are they?" 



" Oh, Lord ! " returned my alter ego, or perhaps my astral 

 self, " neither they are ! " 



" But we can't help that," came some third and inner- 

 most voice. " Here is a bear ! hast come to shoot bears ? " 

 which last was incontrovertible, accompanied as it was 

 by a mental illustration of my orderly drooping his sad 

 jaw, with the words " ghoom-ghdm ! " issuing therefrom. 



By this time the bear had advanced a few paces and 

 turned slightly to his right. His head now pointed rather 

 to my left than straight towards me; the moment was 

 auspicious. The rifle came up, elbows on knees, the white 



