AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 177 



The shock was so sudden and the effect on him so 

 deadly that he apparently thought nothing of fight, 

 but only of seeking a place to die in peace. 



He wheeled and shot into a neighboring thicket 

 with the speed of an arrow. I fired at him again as 

 he disappeared. He crashed through the jungle out 

 into the open w r oods, turned to the right and went 

 across a ridge as if Satan himself were after him. 

 As the big gray mass shot through a clear space 

 between two trees I gave him another speeder, and 

 then he disappeared beyond a ridge. 



The snow had melted rapidly and the ground was 

 bare in places, so that I had some trouble in trailing 

 the bear, but wherever he crossed a patch of snow 

 his trail was bespattered with blood. I followed 

 over the ridge and through scattering jack pines, 

 about two hundred yards, and found him lying 

 dead near the trail. My first and third bullets had 

 gone in behind his shoulder only an inch apart. 

 The first had passed clear through him, and the 

 other had lodged against the skin on the opposite 

 side. Several ribs were broken on either side, and 

 his lungs and other portions of his interior were 

 ground into sausage; yet so great was his vitality 

 and tenacity to life that he was able to make this 

 distance at a speed that would have taxed the best 

 horse in the country, and if he had seen fit to attack 

 me instead of running away he would probably 

 have made sausage of me. 



But what feasting and what revelry there was in 

 camp that night. It was a young bear, fat as 

 butter, and rib roasts and cutlets were devoured in 



quantities that would have shocked the modesty of 

 12 



