HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 



By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, 



AUTHOR OF "MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN," "IN THE WILDERNESS," "BADDECK," ETC. 



SO many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual 

 encounter with an Adirondack bear last summer, that in justice 

 to the public, to myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make 

 a plain statement of the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occa 

 sion to kill a bear that the celebration of the exploit may be excused. 



The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was not 

 hunting for a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was 

 looking for me. The fact is that we were both out blackberrying, 

 and met by chance, — the usual way. There is among the Adirondack 

 visitors always a great deal of conversation about bears, — a general 

 expression of the wish to see one in the woods, and much speculation 

 as to how a person would act if he or she chanced to meet one. But 

 bears are scarce and timid and appear only to a favored few. 



It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an 

 adventure of any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the 

 housekeepers at our cottage — there were four of them — to send me 

 to the clearing, on the mountain back of the house, to pick black- 

 berries. It was rather a series of small clearings, running up into 

 the forest, much overgrown with bushes and briers, and not unroman- 

 tic. Cows pastured there, penetrating through the leafy passages 

 from one opening to another, and browsing among the bushes. I was 

 kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told not to be gone long. 



Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took 

 a gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he 

 also carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge ; 

 though how I was to hit him, if he started up instead of standing 



