374 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



eaten a large rabbit. The stomachs of the deer we killed, 

 by the way, contained acorns and leaves. 



Our new camp was beautifully situated on the bold, 

 steep bank of Bear Lake a tranquil stretch of water, 

 part of an old river bed, a couple of hundred yards broad 

 with a winding length of several miles. Giant cypress 

 grew at the edge of the water; the singular cypress knees 

 rising in every direction round about, while at the bot- 

 toms of the trunks themselves were often cavernous hol- 

 lows opening beneath the surface of water, some of them 

 serving as dens for alligators. There was a waxing moon, 

 so that the nights were as beautiful as the days. 



From our new camp we hunted as steadily as from the 

 old. We saw bear sign, but not much of it, and only one 

 or two fresh tracks. One day the hounds jumped a bear, 

 probably a yearling from the way it ran; for at this sea- 

 son a yearling or a two-year-old will run almost like a 

 deer, keeping to the thick cane as long as it can and then 

 bolting across through the bushes of the ordinary swamp 

 land until it can reach another canebrake. After a three 

 hours' run this particular animal managed to get clear 

 away without one of the hunters ever seeing it, and it ran 

 until all the dogs were tired out. A day or two afterward 

 one of the other members of the party shot a small year- 

 ling that is, a bear which would have been two years old 

 in the following February. It was very lean, weighing 

 but fifty-five pounds. The finely chewed acorns in its 

 stomach showed that it was already beginning to find 

 mast. 



We had seen the tracks of an old she in the neigh- 



