How I Killed a Bear. 823 



The bear was approaching. It suddenly occurred to me how I 

 could divert his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. 

 My pail was nearly full of excellent berries, — much better than the bear 

 could pick himself. I put the pail on the ground, and slowly backed 

 away from it, keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. The 

 ruse succeeded. 



The bear came up to the berries and stopped. Not accustomed 

 to eat out of a pail, he tipped it over, and nosed about in the fruit, 

 ** gorming" (if there is such a word) it down, mixed with leaves and 

 dirt, like a pig. The bear is a worse feeder than the pig. Whenever 

 he disturbs a maple-sugar camp in the spring, he always upsets the 

 buckets of syrup, and tramples around in the sticky sweets, wasting 

 more than he eats. The bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable. 



As soon as my enemy's head was down, I started and ran. Some- 

 what out of breath, and shaky, I reached my faithful rifle. It was 

 not a moment too soon. I heard the bear crashing through the 

 brush after me. Enraged at my duplicity, he was now coming on 

 with blood in his eye. I felt that the time of one of us was prob- 

 ably short. The rapidity of thought at such moments of peril is 

 well known. I thought an octavo volume, had it illustrated and 

 published, sold fifty thousand copies, and went to Europe on the 

 proceeds, while that bear was loping across the clearing. As I 

 was cocking the gun, I made a hasty and unsatisfactory review of my 

 whole life. I noted that even in such a compulsory review, it is almost 

 impossible to think of any good thing you have done. The sins come 

 out uncommonly strong. I recollected a newspaper subscription I had 

 delayed paying years and years ago, until both editor and newspaper 

 were dead, and which now never could be paid to all eternity. 



The bear was coming on. 



I tried to remember what I had read about encounters with 

 bears. I couldn't recall an instance in which a man had run away 

 from a bear in the woods and escaped, although I recalled plenty 

 where the bear had run from the man and got off. I tried to think 

 what is the best way to kill a bear with a gun, when you are not 

 near enough to club him with the stock. My first thought was to 

 fire at his head; to plant the ball between his eyes; but this is a 

 dangerous experiment. The bear's brain is very small ; and, unless 

 you hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet in his head ; that is, not 



