384 TRACKS OF BEAR AND MAN SIMILAR. 



But until the afternoon, we saw nothing of bears, or of 

 their handiworks ; then we noticed the stems of more 

 than one large pine to be deeply scored by the claws of 

 those beasts; and as the scores varied greatly in size, we 

 were led to infer they had been made by a female and 

 her cubs. The marks in question were of somewhat recent 

 date of the preceding autumn apparently and we there- 

 fore judged the bears were not very far away. A good 

 look-out was kept accordingly ; but though all the thickets 

 in the vicinity were very carefully explored, we saw nothing 

 of the beasts. 



At length we met with some very suspicious tracks in the 

 snow, but so old, that it was hard to say whether they were 

 those of man or bear. At all times there is considerable 

 resemblance between the two, and more especially when 

 they are stale. It appearing strange, however, that people 

 should have been in the part of the forest we were then 

 traversing known to us to be little or not at all frequented 

 in the winter time we determined on following the tracks 

 for a while. 



But this was no easy matter, for where the snow had 

 drifted they were entirely obliterated; and at times, there- 

 fore, we were altogether at fault. No one indeed but an 

 experienced Chasseur, like Elg, could have made them out 

 at all. So long as the tracks led through the more open 

 parts of the forest, as in the first instance, no decided con- 

 clusion could be come to; but when they wound amongst 

 tangled brakes, as was the case subsequently, where a 

 human being, excepting on all fours, could hardly have 

 penetrated, it was evident we were on the right trail. 

 A month or five weeks previously some heavy rain had 



