24 



BEARS AND BEAVERS. 



or the log attached to the trap coming in violent 

 collision with some protruding stump or stone, I 

 may attribute my escape. 



But I was not yet out of trouble, for a second rush 

 was made upon me, which I was endeavouring to fend 

 off, by holding my gun with both hands in front of 

 my chest, when a flash passed my eye, and to my sur- 

 prise the enemy gradually sunk down within almost 

 touching distance. The whole affair appeared a 

 miracle, for there was no report, and to nothing that I 

 was aware of, could I attribute my enemy's death, 

 but I soon discovered, what I had been too much 

 engaged to observe before, viz. Joe, the Indian, by my 

 side. It was the flash of the blade of his tomakawk 

 I had noted, as it descended upon the bear's skull 

 and administered to my enemy his coup de grdce. 



My rescuer was almost as upset as I was, for as he 

 expressed it, he feared he had not time to get up 

 before the animal had a hold of me, when the odds 

 were that I would be very " muche munched up." 



To have been witness to th"s fight must have been 

 very interesting, though scarcely as much so as to the 

 participants. Joe had seen the whole encounter 

 from the commencement, and asserted that my escape 

 from the first rush of the quarry was owing to the 

 log attached to the trap having caught in a snag, 

 which upon inspection of the surroundings proved to 

 be the case. 



The Indian not having kept his appointment was 

 accounted for by an otter having carried off one of 

 his traps, the recovery of which had taken an hour ; 

 thus he did not reach the bluff till some time after I 

 left it. The confusion at the bower house told him 

 the cause of my having started, so he hurried on my 

 track, and, as the reader will see, just reached me in 

 the nick of time. 



From the date of the escape I have narrated, my 

 dusky rescuer and myself became great friends and 



.:2l ■ 



