166 SPORT INDEED 



quite daylight, and objects, even a short distance 

 away, had an undefined and hazy look. A few yards 

 up-stream I saw what I took to be an animal of some 

 sort going slowly along and keeping about the same 

 distance ahead of me. What it was my eyes were un- 

 able to tell me, further than it was very round and 

 very dark-looking. Sometimes it would walk on the 

 stones in the brook, as if afraid of getting its feet wet, 

 and where there were no stones to step on it would 

 take to a path in the grass along the brook. After 

 straining my eyes awhile I decided that the creature 

 was a young bear and I was on the point of shooting 

 him, when it occurred to me that if it were a " cub " 

 the mother couldn't be far away, and it would be the 

 better plan to watch for her, shoot her, and then cap- 

 ture her offspring alive. In the meanwhile the animal 

 was walking leisurely along, turning around occasion- 

 ally to take a look at me, but seeming to be in no wise 

 alarmed. 



The day now began to dawn and objects about me 

 to grow more distinct and appear in something like 

 their proper shape. I turned my eyes inquisitively in 

 the direction of my cub, but there was no cub there, 

 nor any other animal that looked like one. I had 

 made a singular mistake which it took the daylight to 

 rectify. A big porcupine now stood in the cub's place, 

 staring at me with quills erect and a " hands-off " con- 

 fidence in his prickly armor that amused me. In a 



