92 THE ADIRONDACK. 



proximity, yet afraid to confront us. They will smell 

 a human form an inconceivable distance. 



On another occasion, if I had had a dog with me, I 

 should have brought you home a bear skin as a 

 trophy. I was passing through a heavy windfall, 

 where berry bushes, &c., had grown up over the 

 fallen timber, when I suddenly heard a hoarse 

 "humph, humph," and then a crashing through the 

 bushes. I had come upon a huge bear which was 

 quietly picking berries. The fellow put off at a tre- 

 mendous rate, and I after him. I should judge he 

 was about three hundred yards distant at the outset, 

 which he soon increased to four hundred. He made 

 for a swamp which he probably crossed, and climbed 

 up the steep mountain on the farther side to his den. 



When he went down the bank to the swamp, he 

 showed the size of his track, and he must have been a 

 rouser. With a dog I should have "treed" him, and 

 then he could have been easily shot. The hunter 

 with me caught one a short time before, in a trap, on 

 this same mountain. Where two large trees had 

 fallen across each other so as to make an acute angle, 

 he placed a piece of meat, and a strong spiked steel 

 trap directly in front of it, covered over with leaves. 



