228 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



shooting under such circumstances is chance work, 

 and I missed the bear several times, until at last 

 with a lucky shot I rolled him over, and Joe and I 

 threw ourselves down exhausted beside his dead 

 body. Joe's first action was to be violently sea- 

 sick ; he then sat him down on a rock, filled and 

 lit his pipe, and gasped out, " Oh, I thought we 

 should have taken off our breeches ! " I stared at 

 Joe, thinking his exertions had produced a fit of 

 temporary insanity, and said, " Why, Joe, what 

 on earth should we take off our breeches for ? " 

 " What for ? — Why, suppose you not got any 

 breeches on, you run heap faster. Best always 

 take 'em off before shooting at a bear : he run such 

 a devil of a pace if you only wound him." And so, 

 having rested a little and skinned our bear, and 

 packed the hide and some meat on our backs, we 

 scrambled down to the shore, chucked our burdens 

 into the canoes lying ready laden, and paddled off 

 under the light of a rising moon. 



Our canoes were deep in the water. A straight 

 course led us far from shore, and once or twice my 

 heart leaped into my throat with a horrid feeling 

 of apprehension, at the sudden unearthly scream 

 of a startled loon, sounding exactly like a human 

 shriek of agony denoting the capsize of one of the 



