ENCAMPMENT IN THE WILDERNESS 97 



This was nothing less than the meeting with and killing 

 my first bear — a huge creature of the black species, 

 Ursus Americana. It was the skin of this huge beast for 

 which I received fifty pounds in England; and it was 

 acknowledged by all the trappers who saw it to be one of 

 the finest that they had ever examined, and to be in 

 perfect condition. That I obtained it as easily as I did 

 was an almost miraculous piece of good fortune, for I was 

 armed only with a shot gun. 



I had been out looking for small game, and was some 

 distance away from our camping-place in a piece of rocky 

 ground, with a stream of water in front and a swamp on 

 the right. I had not expected to meet with any large 

 animal as there were no tracks of deer in the neighbour- 

 hood, and bears never entered my thoughts ; yet when re- 

 turning I came quite suddenl}^ on a very large black bear, 

 which was busy devouring blackberries, and also beetles : 

 for I saw him turning over stones and detached pieces of 

 rock in search of them, and eagerly scratching thera out 

 of crevices. He was not nearly a hundred yards off when 

 I first saw him ; and though I was walking rather care- 

 lessly at the time, he neither saw nor heard me. I came 

 to a sudden halt, rather startled, I must own, for this Avas 

 the first wild bear I had ever seen, and it at once occurred 

 to me that I was very poorly armed for an encounter with 

 such an animal. I had a twelve-gauge gun loaded with 

 number 4 shot, and a pair of heavy pistols without 

 which I never moved ; but pistols were scarcely fit weapons 

 to attack a bear with, though they carried balls averaging 

 twenty-five to the pound weight. 



The bear was slowly advancing towards me, and I 

 was compelled to retreat : for the space between the brook 

 and the swamp was so narrow that I could not risk an 

 attempt to pass the bear. I tried to ford the brook, but 

 not only did the water come above the waist before I 

 reached the middle, but the bottom was a treacherous 

 quicksand, and I had to get out of it hastily, after a 



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