68 THE EASTERN HUNTERS. 



" Ay ! I'm just going to tell you. You know I 

 had to strike the hills, about a mile on your left, 

 Norman. Well, just as I approached them, I met a 

 couple of men running to our camp. They told 

 me a wood-cutter had seen two bears, and marked 

 them down among some rocks, and that they 

 were on their way to fetch us. I knew it was no 

 use hunting for you two fellows, even had there 

 been time ; so I determined to have a shy at 

 them by myself. I found about twenty or thirty 

 men had assembled from a village not far distant ; 

 so I took them off with me at once. The place in 

 which the bears were reported to be lying, was a 

 big ravine, a sort of winding cleft, which, cut from 

 the hill front, ran in a slanting direction. Some 

 parts of the sides rose almost precipitously from the 

 ravine to the table-land on the hill-top. I left it to 

 the men entirely to conduct our plan of action. It 

 was arranged that I should stand guard over a 

 wooded nullah which ran into the ravine on one 

 side, while they should go round by the other side to 

 the head of the gorge, and tumble rocks and stones 

 into it. I had just reached my station, and the 

 men, in small separate parties of threes and fours, 

 were moving along on the opposite side, about 

 three hundred yards from where I stood, when a 

 clattering of stones down the rocky side of the 



