14 BRUIN TREED. 



hollow. After a careful study of the trees, a patch of black 

 was detected among the leafy branches near the top of a very 

 high one. Having carefully noted the spot, I stole quietly 

 through the heavy jungle towards it — Kurbeer Goorung, my 

 Goorkha henchman and shikaree, following closely with my 

 second gun. Every now and then we stopped to listen and 

 to examine the trees, but nothing could we either see or hear. 

 We were beginning to think the beast must have winded us 

 and decamped, for Bruin's olfactory powers are exceedingly 

 acute, when we were rather startled at hearing a sort of hum- 

 ming moaning sound close to us. Kurbeer, in a whisper, 

 suggested that it might possibly be a tiger, for we had ob- 

 served the fresh tracks of one in the vicinity. Instinctively 

 we both placed our backs against the trunk of the nearest 

 tree, and anxiously peered around into the thick dark jungle. 

 We had been standing thus but a few seconds when some- 

 thing wet came dropping on to my head. On looking upward, 

 there, in the very tree we were under, was the object of our 

 search — 



" In shape o' beast ; 

 A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large," — 



like a spread-eagle among the branches, gazing wistfully down 

 at us, and looking the most absurd picture of astonishment 

 and concern at being thus disturbed at his breakfast. We 

 were not long in standing from under that tree. A shot from 

 each of us — for the lad was too excited to withhold his fire 

 — brought the brute straight down with a thud to the ground, 

 where, after one or two whining grunts, he succumbed to liis 

 fate. 



A bear, when up a tree, even if only slightly wounded, 

 never attempts to clamber down. It invariably flops straight 

 on to the ground from any height whatsoever. I once saw a 

 bear I had shot at roll over and over like a ball down an 

 almost perpendicular declivity for several hundred feet, and 

 seemingly without much inconvenience from its tumble, as 

 it was nowhere to be found at the bottom. 



