Hunting the Grisly. 305 



and piercing one lung. At the shot he uttered a loud, 

 moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy gallop, 

 while I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off. 

 After going a few hundred feet he reached a laurel thicket, 

 some thirty yards broad, and two or three times as long 

 which he did not leave. I ran up to the edge and there 

 halted, not liking to venture into the mass of twisted, close- 

 growing stems and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, 

 I heard him utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from 

 the heart of the brush. Accordingly, I began to skirt the 

 edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing earnestly to see if I 

 could not catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was at 

 the narrowest part of the thicket, he suddenly left it 

 directly opposite, and then wheeled and stood broadside to 

 me on the hill-side, a little above. He turned his head 

 stiffly towards me ; scarlet strings of froth hung from his 

 lips ; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom. 



I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet 

 shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a 

 big nick. Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh 

 roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from 

 his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs ; 

 and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bound- 

 ing through the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. 

 I waited until he came to a fallen tree, raking him as he 

 topped it with a ball, which entered his chest and went 

 through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved 

 nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I 

 had struck him. He came steadily on, and in another 

 second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but 



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