56 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 



hind a little bend. He whispered to the rifleman, who 

 sat kneeling in the bow of the boat, to take his rifle. 

 But instead of doing so he picked up his two-barreled 

 shot-gun. As they turned the point, there stood a 

 bear not twenty yards away, drinking from the stream. 

 [Jncle Nathan held the canoe, while the man who had 

 come so far in quest of this ver}'^ game was trying to 

 lay down his shot-gun and pick up his rifle. '' His 

 hand moved like the hand of a clock," said Uncle 

 Nathan, '' and I could hardly keep my seat. I knew 

 the bear would see us in a moment more, and run." 

 Instead of laying his gun by his side, where it be- 

 longed, he reached it across in front of him and laid 

 it upon his rifle, and in trying to get the latter from 

 under it a noise was made ; the bear heard it and 

 raised his head. Still there was time, for as the bear 

 sprang into the woods he stopped and looked back, — 

 " as I knew he would," said the guide ; yet the marks- 

 man was not ready. " By hemp ! I could have shot 

 three bears," exclaimed Uncle Nathan, " while he was 

 getting that rifle to his face ! " 



Poor Mr. Bull's Eye was deeply humiliated. "Just 

 the chance I had been looking for," he said, " and my 

 wits suddenly left me." 



As a hunter Uncle Nathan always took the game 

 on its own terms, that of still-hunting. He even shot 

 foxes in this way, going into the fields in the fall just! 

 at break of day, and watching for them about their 

 mousing haunts. One morning, by these tactics, he 

 shot a black fox ; a fine specimen, he said, and a wild 

 one, for he stopped and looked and listened every few 

 yards. 



He had killed over two hundred moose, a large 

 number of them at night on the lakes. His method 



