Cherry 



enable him to breathe after the first ducking, 

 he set to work to remove the obstructing car- 

 tridge; but it was slow work, and he labored 

 under great disadvantages. Meantime the 

 bear grew impatient, and evidently decided to 

 force the fighting, for he walked out on the 

 dam and tore a large section out of it. The 

 pond drained rapidly, and, to his horror, 

 Cherry soon felt the impetus of the current 

 drawing him with ever increasing rapidity into 

 the clutches of the bear, who was at the open- 

 ing, balancing himself on three legs prepara- 

 tory to reaching for his victim with the fourth. 

 When Cherry reached this point in his narra- 

 tive I took a good look at him, to see if he 

 was really present in the flesh, so completely 

 did he seem to have closed every avenue of 

 escape. But it seems a new cartridge did go 

 home finally, and as he made the last cut with 

 his skinning knife, he told me that that hide 

 brought him $60 green. 



Apparently no adventure ever happened to 

 Cherry that did not remind him of some paral- 

 lel instance in which he had figured, usually of 

 a much more dangerous and exciting charac- 

 ter. One year, while we were hunting in an 

 extremely rough and broken country, we came 



63 



