EARLY DAY STORIES. 179 



next night after this, there was a snow, but still the bear did 

 not come back, and Mr. Mason determined to take a turn in 

 the hills and see if he could find signs of him. He found 

 the bear, all right, but he did not live to tell of it. 



As Mason did not return when expected, his wife, be- 

 coming uneasy about him, took his track and following it into 

 the hills only a mile or so from the house, found his dead and 

 mangled body lying in the snow by the side of a log. Help 

 was summoned and the body brought in and cared for. 



The rest of this story is gathered from the tell-tale 

 tracks in the snow which gave a very clear and concise ac- 

 count of what happened. 



Within a mile or less of home Mr. Mason had come 

 upon the fresh tracks of the bear, and following them into 

 a dense thicket of brush and trees, had suddenly come upon 

 the bear, which immediately charged him. Mason fired at 

 close range, giving the bear a wound that would finally 

 have proved mortal, but which did not hinder him from 

 making a furious charge. The rifle was found in the snow 

 with an empty shell jammed in the magazine. Finding that 

 he could not reload. Mason threw down the gun and started 

 to climb a tree. When up ten or twelve feet from the ground 

 the bear seized him by one heel, pulled him to the ground 

 and continued to bite and maul him until he seemed to be 

 dead. The bear then left his victim and retired into the 

 brush some distance away and lay down to nurse his own 

 wound. How long Mason lay where the bear left him is 

 not known, but he did finally come to himself again, and 

 started towards home. He went a short distance, however, 

 when coming to a log, he sat down upon it to dress his 

 wounded heel, which was terribly lacerated by the bite 

 given by the bear when pulling him down from the tree. 

 Mason took off both his outside and undershirt, and putting 

 the outer shirt on again, tore up the undershirt into strips 

 and began to do up his heel, when he was attacked by the 



