TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 119 



morning hours. The bear could not travel far, he 

 was evidently seriously disabled, and as Steve said, 

 " Him very sick." Reluctantly and regretfully we 

 abandoned the chase for the day, and it was well we 

 did so, for the sky grew black and overcast ere we 

 made camp, and our bearings were not of the 

 clearest. This because Steve took us what he called 

 "a short cut," and like many other short routes it 

 proved in the end to be the longest way round. 



As to Steve well, I expressed to him, in no mild 

 terms, what George Moore calls " the thought at the 

 back of one's mind." Cecily backed me up, and said 

 that speaking from the point of view of an unbiassed 

 observer she considered Steve to be a real rotter as 

 far as bear hunting is concerned. That made me 

 laugh, and I forgot to be cross any more. For there 

 are so few fair and unbiassed observers in the world. 

 The majority of us can only count one, and natural 

 modesty won't allow us to give him a name. 



All that night Cecily worried on about the wounded 

 bear left out in the bush. It was a great, if impos- 

 sible-to-be-helped, pity. It is a hateful thought that 

 you didn't kill your animal straight out, and that, 

 in consequence of some negligence on your part, the 

 creature is at large, suffering. " A small thing, but 

 it troubled me," said Mr. Pepys, as he tore his new 

 cloak on the door, and this small trouble weighed on 

 us all night and drove sleep away. We were not 

 sporting enough, I suppose, to be indifferent. 



Might it be that, being women, we could not learn 

 to take such normal accidents pertaining to the chase 



