88 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
Into this crotch he got and seated himself, the dogs 
yelling all around it; and there he sat eyeing them as 
quiet as a pond in low water. 
“A greenhorn friend of mine, in company, reached 
shooting distance before me, and blazed away, hitting 
the critter in the centre of his forehead. The bear 
shook his head as the ball struck it, and then walked 
down from that tree, as gently as a lady would from a 
carriage. 
‘oPwas a beautiful sight to see him do that—he was 
in such a rage, that he seemed to be as little afraid of 
the dogs as if they had been sucking pigs ; and the dogs 
warn’t slow in making a ring around him at a respectful 
distance, I tell you; even Bowieknife himself, stood 
off. Then the way his eyes flashed !—why the fire of 
them would have singed a cat’s hair; in fact, that bear 
was ina wrath all over.. Only one pup came near him, 
and he was brushed out so totally with the bear’s left 
paw, that he entirely disappeared; and that made the 
old dogs more cautious still. In the mean time, I came 
up, and taking deliberate aim, as a man should do, at his 
side, just back of his foreleg, of my gun did not snap, 
call me a coward, and I won’t take it personal. 
~ “ Yes, stranger, 7 snapped, and I could not find a 
cap about my person. While in this predicament, I 
turned round to my fool friend— Bill,’ says I, ‘ you’re 
an ass—you're a fool—you might as well have tried to 
kill that bear by barking the tree under his belly, as to 
