i8o A BLACK BEAR HUNT 



in a lean and hungry condition, he often gives evidence of a short 

 temper, and occasionally adopts that simple rule of warfare, to 

 ' go for an enemy on sight ' . 



It may hence be readily understood how some make out the 

 black bear a dangerous animal, while others brand him as the 

 most arrant of* cowards. This is only one of many instances 

 where seemingly inexplicable differences in observers' accounts 

 may be reconciled by allowing for variations in the character 

 of the animal at different seasons of the year. A desperately 

 wounded bear, however, it is always well to avoid at close quarters. 

 Not long ago a couple of farmers had been worrying a bear all 

 day, which, mortally wounded, had retreated to a deep ravine in 

 order to hide from his enemies. The foremost man, armed only 

 with an axe, thinking to make an easy prey of the creature, extended 

 on the ground and bleeding profusely from the mouth, aimed 

 a blow which the bear quickly parried. It then closed with the 

 aggressor. After a terrible struggle both bear and man fell dead, 

 and were afterwards borne away from the steep ravine on the 

 same rude barrow of branches. 



When, seated about the camp fire, the pipes are lit and there 

 are no such pipes smoked elsewhere tales go round of bruin's 

 cunning and stratagems. The Indians, usually taciturn, begin 

 to unbend in stories of their craft. There is no doubt that the 

 weird hibernation of ' mooin ', as they call the bear, appeals in 

 a greater degree to their sense of awe than the furtive ways of 

 any other of the furry folk of the forest. Mooin grows very sleepy 

 early in the month of November, and withdraws from a cold world 

 into the undisturbed seclusion of a winter den. 



While the moose is tramping defiantly round his storm-swept 

 yard, and the caribou is ' toughing it out ' on the windy plains, 

 digging for his dinner with his great splayed hoofs down through 

 a dense sheet of snow to the crisp grey lichens beneath ; while 

 the beaver's citadel is beleaguered with thick-ribbed ice ; while 

 the gaunt lynx, made reckless by famine, leaves the wintry forest 

 and prowls even in daytime in the dangerous precincts of the 

 farmyard, there is your philosopher mooin snugly curled up on a 

 well-prepared bed of withered leaves, dry ferns, and grasses. King- 

 doms may crumble, wars and carnage may convulse the civilized 

 world, but the echo of man's strife reaches not his cave deep buried 

 on the mountain slope. The warmth necessary to his existence 

 is supplied by his own fat. Each day he draws a small cheque on 

 his reserve fund of ' bear's grease ', rich in carbon. By dint of 

 suspended activity and undisturbed sleep this will support life 

 until the spring thaws set him free, to go forth gaunt and haggard 



