A BEAK IN DIFFICULTY. 307 



Mike took the strap in his hands, and we silently fol- 

 lowed the lead of the dog. In a moment we passed a 

 tree that had been stripped of its bark for a distance of 

 five feet from the ground, and the bark scattered all 

 about, while the hard inner wood of the tree was all fur- 

 rowed by the nails of the animal. 



" An old He," said Mike. 



" How do you know that ?" 



" The she ones are 'bout havin' young, and are hid in 

 the big swamps," replied Mike ; "and he's a fat one ; see, 

 his hind toe marks don't touch his front ones. If he'd 

 been a rael lean one, they'd a well-nigh overlapped." 



The marks we saw soon led us to. the edge of the 

 bushes, and then out on the open sands. We followed 

 carefully until a roll of sand affording a cover for us, we 

 crawled up behind it, and carefully concealing our heads 

 behind bunches of grass that grew scattered about the 

 summit, beheld our game in the undisturbed pursuit of 

 his morning avocations. The surf was rolling in, and 

 there were many thmgs lying about on the sands that 

 had been stranded by a recent storm : here a tortoise- 

 shell, and there a cocoanut, and further on a board, and 

 some fragments of a vessel. Bruin was busy inspecting 

 these flotsam that had drifted into his domain, and his 

 manner of doing so was as follows : He would first look 

 at the article, then smell it, then touch it with his fore 

 paw, and then he would deliberately seat himself in the 

 sand on his broad posteriors, with his hind legs project- 

 ing in front, and his toes turned up, and, lifting the arti- 



