398 The Hunting Grounds 



that morning, or that I feared hitting the man, I 

 know not, but the first bullet fell short ; the second, 

 however, struck fair, and the bear, with a sharp 

 hoarse cry of pain, quitted the fallen man, and again 

 made after the rest. I reloaded as quickly as possible 

 and ran up towards the wounded man, when I again 

 saw Bruin for a moment, and got a couple of snap- 

 shots at him as he bolted into some cover, having 

 been turned by a straggling volley from some of my 

 gang and the Bey's people. I found the youth who 

 had fallen into the bear's clutches severely bitten in 

 the shoulder, besides having his side clawed, and 

 being considerably bruised and shaken, though not 

 dangerously hurt ; so, after bandaging his wounds as 

 well as I could, I collected the people together, and 

 prepared to make another effort to dislodge Bruin 

 from his shelter. 



One of my people had seen him enter some thick 

 underwood between two large rocks, and I tried to 

 coax the dogs to go in and drive him out; but it 

 was of no use, they only ran yelping round the 

 thicket Two of their number had been killed in the 

 first onset, and some of the others severely mauled, 

 which damped the courage of the rest; so, finding 

 that nothing could be effected with their assistance, 

 I posted all the people in groups as safely as I could 

 at one end of the cover, in case the game might 

 break without showing fight, and followed up the 



