180 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



like that of a broad, short, bare human foot. It was 

 none other than the paw-mark of Mr. Bear, who 

 is a plantigrade and walks flat-footed. Although I 

 was sorry to miss seeing him, yet I was glad that it 

 was the bear and not the man who had to dive 

 through that underbrush. 



Another time I was camping in Maine. Not far 

 from our tent, which we had cunningly concealed 

 on a little knoll near the edge of a lonely lake, I found 

 a tiny brook which trickled down a hillside. Al- 

 though it ran through dense underbrush, it was possi- 

 ble to fish it, and every afternoon I would bring back 

 half a dozen jeweled trout to broil for supper. One 

 day I had gone farther in than usual, and was stand- 

 ing silently, up to my waist in water and brush, 

 trying to cast over an exasperating bush into a little 

 pool beyond. Suddenly I smelt bear. Not far from 

 me there sounded a very faint crackling in the bushes 

 on a little ridge, about as loud as a squirrel would 

 make. As I leaned forward to look, my knee came 

 squarely against a nest of enthusiastic and able- 

 bodied yellow-jackets. Instantly a cloud of them 

 burst over me like shrapnel, stinging my unprotected 

 face unendurably. As I struck at them with my 

 hand, I caught just one glimpse of a patch of black 

 fur through the brush on the ridge above me. The 

 next second my hand struck my eye-glasses, and 

 they went spinning into the brush, lost forever, and 

 I was stricken blind. Thereafter I dived and hopped 

 like a frog through the brush and water, until I came 

 out beyond that yellow-jacket barrage. I never saw 



