822 How I Killed a Bear. 



realizes when you reach it), penetrating farther and farther, through 

 leaf-shaded cow-paths flecked with sunlight, into clearing after clear- 

 ing. I could hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of 

 sticks, and the stamping of cattle that were taking refuge in the 

 thicket from the flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, I 

 encountered a meek cow, who stared at me stupidly for a second and 

 then shambled off into the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb 

 society, and picked on in silence, attributing all the wood-noises to 

 the cattle, thinking nothing of any real bear. In point of fact, how- 

 ever, I was thinking all the time of a nice romantic bear, and, as I 

 picked, was composing a story about a generous she-bear who had 

 lost her cub, and who seized a small girl in this very wood, carried 

 her tenderly off to a cave, and brought her up on bear's milk and 

 honey. When the girl got big enough to run away, moved by her 

 inherited instincts, she escaped, and came into the valley to her 

 father's house (this part of the story was to be worked out, so that 

 the child would know her father by some family resemblance, and 

 have some language in which to address him), and told him where 

 the bear lived. The father took his gun, and, guided by the unfeeling 

 daughter, went into the woods and shot the bear, who never made 

 any resistance, and only, when dying, turned reproachful eyes upon 

 her murderer. The moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals. 

 I was in the midst of this tale, when I happened to look some 

 rods away to the other edge of the clearing, and there was a bear ! 

 He was standing on his hind-legs, and doing just what I was doing, 

 — picking blackberries. With one paw he bent down the bush, 

 while with the other he clawed the berries into his mouth, — green 

 ones and all. To say that I was astonished is inside the mark. I 

 suddenly discovered that I didn't want to see a bear, after all. At 

 about the same moment, the bear saw me, stopped eating berries, 

 and regarded me with a glad surprise. It is all very well to imagine 

 what you would do under such circumstances. Probably you 

 would'nt do it : I didn't. The bear dropped down on his fore- 

 feet and came slowly toward me. Climbing a tree was of no use, 

 with so good a climber in the rear. If I started to run, I had 

 no doubt the bear would give chase ; and although a bear cannot 

 run down-hill as fast as he can run up-hill, yet I felt that he could 

 get over this rough, brush-tangled ground faster than I could. 



