VII A MOVE TO THE WEST AND BERING SEA 135 



at him, more particularly as the whole scene was being enacted 

 ' within 250 yards of our camp, and in full sight of it. Luckily 

 Schultze had seen us running, and soon after saw the bear, 

 and had kept the men quiet in camp, although, unknown to 

 me, our new man was then stalking behind us with his old- 

 fashioned Winchester rifle, he having also seen the bear. 



Nicolai whispered to me, " Don't shoot, he swim now," 

 and sure enough he did. After one look round, he plunged 

 straight into the stream, and never have I seen any animal 

 swim so fast and powerfully along the top of the water as 

 this great beast. The point he selected for landing was 

 some 20 yards above where I sat in the high grass. Just as 

 his fore-feet touched the bottom and he began to raise him- 

 self from the water, I planted a bullet from my Mannlicher 

 behind his shoulder. He made a wild rush forward for a few 

 yards on the bank, and I, thinking my first shot must have 

 been wide of the mark, and yet scarcely believing I could 

 have made so bad a shot at so short a distance, was preparing 

 to give him another, when his legs collapsed and he fell on 

 his side, apparently quite dead. Having been repeatedly 

 cautioned by older sportsmen than myself about approaching 

 a dangerous animal in a hurry when he only seems to be 

 dead, and knowing from previous experiences the tremendous 

 vitality of these great bears, I was in no haste about walking 

 up to him. After reloading the rifle I stood up, and so, inirabile 

 dicttt, did the bear, for by some extraordinary manoeuvre, 

 which was too rapid for me to follow, he reared himself on 

 his hind legs, thereby giving me my first correct idea of what 

 these great beasts look like in that position. It was all so 

 sudden that I did not stop to think about spoiling the skin, 

 but gave him a bullet in the side of the skull, and he fell like 

 a log. This should have sufficed for anything made of flesh 



