METAPHYSICS OF BEAR HUNTING. 361 



that, or it'll run me crazy, sure enough ! Ila ! ha ! this is 

 a funny joke ! what a laugh I'll have with the fellows when 

 we all get together again ! Oh ! they have all hid as I have 

 done, and we will all meet out there at the mouth of the 

 gorge after awhile ! 



Pooh ! the Fates merely mean to try my nerves ! Curse 

 that moaning ! I must go down and kill that bear. Pity to 

 kill him, too ; it's a sort of companionship ! Doleful friends 

 we'll be ! Confound it, if it wouldn't whine so piteously I 

 could stand it ! Pshaw ! the fellows will be here directly, and 

 what will they say to find I have been so unmanned by a 

 little silence, that I could not finish a wounded bear, when I 

 came all this way to hunt it ? So down I went ! The great 

 monster, I found, was too far gone to be savage. He merely 

 stared at me through half-closed eyes, then tossed his head 

 about, gaped his jaws, and moaned. I went close up to him. 

 I wanted him to show fight and excite me. It looked like 

 cold-blooded murder to kill him so, and we the only live 

 things near : but he wouldn't notice me. 



His back was broken, and he had enough to occupy him. 

 "Wouldn't it be merciful to put him out of pain ? Yes ! but 

 who's going to be merciful to me when I'm starving, after 

 my ammunition gives out ! I felt jealous of the bear's good 

 luck, in having me there with a large knife to kill him at 

 once ! 



All my logic wouldn't do. Sophise as I might, the awful 

 conviction was settling about my brain that the party had 

 been hopelessly scattered, and that I was left alone, with 

 no experience to guide me back, and no hope of getting 

 back on foot if I had possessed experience. But it wouldn't 

 do to let this feeling gain the ascendant. I must have 

 something to employ me. They might come yet. 



So, I deliberately split the bear's skull open with my 

 bowie-knife, and went to work very formally to dissect him. 

 I managed to protract this operation to such a length, that,- 



