BULLETS AND THEIR BILLETS 



might just as easily have exploded the 

 charge a fraction of a second earlier. 



The experience, if an annoying one, 

 was certainly pleasanter than that of an 

 old French trapper who was attacked 

 by a she-bear. Females with cubs some- 

 times forget the timidity which charac- 

 terizes the species, and may become very 

 ugly and dangerous. My friend, having 

 no better weapon than a sheath-knife, 

 put in practice a trick which saved his 

 life, but left him with a badly mauled 

 arm and shoulder that showed deep 

 scars to the day of his death. Snatching 

 a branch of balsam with the left hand, 

 Morin threatened the bear with it, thus 

 diverting attention to his left side; 

 while this was being cruelly torn and 

 bitten, he kept striking stoutly with the 

 knife in his right hand till, at length, he 

 reached the heart. They fell together, 

 the bear dead, the man unconscious, and 

 each soaked in the other's blood. On 

 reviving he staggered to camp, where, 



179 



