BEAR-SPEA.RmG. 25 



first fall of snow. Captain H., who was a 

 wonderful expert on snow shoes, used to 

 leave his quarters in St. Petersburg and seek 

 the thinly peopled districts of Finland. Here 

 the peasants knew and liked the Petersburg 

 Nimrod well, and soon found for him the 

 tracks of his old enemy in the new snow. 



Once on the bear's track. Captain H. 

 asked no more help from any living man, 

 but, armed only with a broad-bladed spear, 

 glided away on his snow shoes, through 

 scattered woods of birches, through silent 

 pine forests, and over dreary steppe lands, 

 takmg no trouble about the wind, or silence, 

 or any other of the many conditions to be 

 observed by the ordmary stalker, for his 

 object was not to creep on his prey unawares, 

 but rather, following him in all his devious 

 wanderings, to fairly run him down. 



Once roused from his fancied solitude, the 

 bear would do all he knew to escape, but, fast 



