60 A BEAR ADVENTURE. 



scending, when I asked him to listen to the noise, for 

 I felt convinced that it emanated from a bear feeding 

 enjoying his favourite bonne boucke, the whortle- 

 berries. " Bub " listened ; Bruin gave another grunt, 

 when the former, exclaiming " Bear ! " slid down 

 the tree with the agility of a monkey. As soon as he 

 reached the ground, off he started down stream, fol- 

 lowed yes, followed by myself. It was a race for 

 thirty or forty yards, but youth won the palm, al- 

 though he had several falls in the struggle. Finally 

 my amour propre asserted itself, or possibly I had 

 become pumped, for I halted not so my companion, 

 he rapidly disappeared through the labyrinth of 

 shrubs. 



To my relief I found that no bear was in pursuit, 

 so placing my rod against a stalwart hemlock, I as- 

 cended to its branches to take a view of the surround- 

 ings. For a long time I could not observe Bruin, 

 but at length discovered a large mass of black fur, 

 accompanied by two similar small ones which pos- 

 sessed animation, and were evidently engaged in 

 search of food. They gradually quitted the damp, 

 low-lying ground and gained an acclivity, where the 

 largest beast commenced drawing broken fragments 

 of " wind-falls " on one side, while the smaller ones 

 feasted upon the beetles and grubs that thus became 

 exposed to view. 



The parent for evidently such the larger one was 

 had neither heard nor winded us, so was perfectly 

 ignorant that her industry and strength were forming 

 a subject of wonder to a son of Adam. In the end 

 their search for insects took the interesting family 

 party out of view, so I descended to join my com- 

 panions. 



The day by this time was far spent, and, neither of 

 us having arms, we hurriedly retraced our steps to 

 the settlement, determined to revisit the scene on the 

 morrow ; this we did, and although accompanied by 



