GOLOVINSKY. 125 



I persuaded Stepan to follow me at a distance in a 

 careful survey of the place in which we had last 

 seen her. Poor beast, she had not gone far ; the 

 moment she was out of our sight her strength 

 failed her, and when we found her she was lying 

 stone dead, not sixty yards from the spot where the 

 bullet had reached her. 



' Express ' rifles are terribly destructive little 

 weapons. This second bear was totally unlike 

 the one killed the day before, at least in colour : 

 for while he was black, her coat, a very fine one, 

 was of a soft light brown, so light as to be almost 

 grey. 



On examination we found that she was a year- 

 ling, and was returning from her morn'ng's work, 

 the ruin of half a fine chestnut-tree, when we met 

 her. Some of the boughs she had managed to 

 break were almost as thick as a man's waist. On 

 looking at her fore-arm after Stepan had skinned 

 her, I could not but reflect that the stories one 

 meets with from time to time, of hand-to-hand con- 

 flicts with bears, require a large grain of salt for the 

 swallowing. 



Leaving Stepan to finish the skinning, I wan- 

 dered on somewhat higher up the hillside. I had 

 not left him a quarter of an hour when I again 

 heard the peculiarly soft regular tread of a bear 

 above me, and after waiting patiently for about five 

 minutes, I caught a glimpse for a moment of the 



