THE BLACK BEAR OF PENNSYLVANIA 27 



the 200 bears, lacking only two; would they come to 

 him ? Not likely. That snapping stick ! 



Alert now, he mused, what could have caused a 

 stick to break? There it is again! How his blood 

 tingled at the thought that it "may be a bear !" With 

 shaking hand, he rubbed his dim eyes 'and stood erect. 

 The thicket of weeds beyond the clearing waved a 

 little, he thought ; could it have been only the breeze ? 

 All his senses were centered upon that thicket, as he 

 stood motionless, nerves tingling and the blood rushed 

 in veins, pounded in his ear drums. 



The distance was hardly two hundred yards. The 

 nervous tension was great, his legs shook and tremors 

 passed along his spine. "Buck-fever" almost caused 

 tears in his fast-winkling eyes, but there he stood, as 

 motionless as the old pine stump; the slightest move- 

 ment might be fatal to his earnest desire! Again 

 the weeds move, ever so slightly, but his vision clears 

 and his frame stiffens ; he stands as rigidly as a 

 pointer dog; he seems to scent the animal; nerves 

 are now quiet and patience rules the ancient hunter; 

 he cocks his Winchester and fixes his eyes upon the 

 thicket; a form emerges from the weeds; still he 

 waits and another form, a smaller one, appears ! 



A large she-bear and her six-months-old cub ap- 

 proached the chestnut x tree ; they pick up the fallen 

 nuts from the ground ; the cub plays about its mother ; 

 she pushes it aside and then rolls it in the leaves, the 

 old hunter raises his gun, his eye traces the gun- 

 sights, in line with the base of her ear, his finger 



