A LitrLe Bear Hunt. 119 

instant death. Now we know why we do not often risk this 
shot, unless the game is very handy to us; it is because if he 
does not have the wind of us and is not much startled, we are 
expecting him in a moment (always provided we stand as 
motionless as the tree bodies themselves) to gradually with- 
draw his eyes from us, and looking around to the way from 
whence he came, partly, or wholly present his broadside to us 
half a moment just before jumping away. 
With some companions we were paddling our canoe 
noiselessly up a still water, listening intently for those sounds 
that always indicate the close proximity of game. 
*¢ To-day,” remarked a cronie, ** we will not be particular, 
as we are hungry for meat, so let it be moose, deer, caribou, 
bear, porcupine or musquash, in fact anything eatible, for we 
will not return to camp without the wherewith for a broil or 
a smother.” 
When far up the quiet winding stream we caught those 
sounds that we wished to hear, the breaking of small decay- 
ing branches upon the ground, and they seemed breaking 
beneath the tread of some heavy animal. My companions 
pushed the canoe ashore quietly, and we stepped toward the 
place the sounds came from, avoiding the many partly 
decayed alders upon the shore, which make such sharp 
cracklings, and stooping low, to save our eyes from the thick 
growing twigs and climbing vines, we crept through to a 
little clearing handy by. It was an old lumber landing with 
grassy spots scattered here and there, but mostly grown up to 
large brakes, with many a small fir bush mixed in. Getting 
out of the shore growth of alders into this little sunny paradise 
of a chance for many kinds of game, when situated in the midst 
of the thick woods, we were just in time to see an old bear 
