IN SEARCH OF BRUIX. 219 



on the wane, when towards midnight we could 

 hear the dry maize stalks by the edge of the 

 forest being slowly scrunched by a party of 

 bears, the father of the little girl and myself 

 turned out. 



The Svan had on a cap of white canvas, 

 such as the Russian soldier wears, but though 

 I kept almost on his heels, as he led the way 

 amongst the maize, I could not always keep 

 him in sight. If I had lost hun I should have 

 had to make a night of it in the maize field, 

 for it was too dark to find one's way un- 

 assisted through a labyrinth of maize stalks, 

 where any step might lead you over the edge 

 of a precipice into a river a hundred feet below, 

 or at the very least send you on your head 

 over a tree which, thougli felled, the farmer 

 had been too lazy to remove. 



There were, so far as we could tell, three 

 bears together at the point whither we were 

 directing our steps, and an examination next 



