BULLETS AND THEIR BILLETS 



Two sportsmen of mature experience 

 descried a bear five or six hundred yards 

 away. They were obliged to make a de- 

 tour in order to approach it, and left 

 their men on a knoll to signal the move- 

 ments of the animal. Overshooting their 

 mark, the presence of the bear was first 

 notified to them by a crashing of 

 branches sixty or seventy yards to the 

 left and rear. Both wheeled suddenly, 

 finger on trigger, and both rifles went off 

 before they were brought to the shoul- 

 der. The bear departed hastily without 

 any ceremonies of leave-taking, while 

 his pursuers looked blankly at the woods 

 which received him, and then at each 

 other. In sitting down on a log, and 

 breaking into inextinguishable laughter, 

 they probably took their discomfiture in 

 the best possible spirit, but afterwards 

 it was remembered that, as they swung 

 round, one had been covered for an in- 

 stant by a rifle with a hair-trigger, and 

 with a finger on that trigger which 



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