6o 



A BEAR ADVENTURE, 



scending, when I asked him to h'sten to the noise, for 

 I felt convinced that it emanated from a bear feeding 

 — enjoying his favourite bonne bouche, the whortle- 

 berries. " Bub " listened ; Bruin gave another grunt, 

 when the former, exclaiming " Bear ! " slid down 

 the tree with the agility of a monkey. As soon as he 

 reached the ground, off he started down stream, fol- 

 lowed — yes, followed by myself. It was a race for 

 thirty or forty yards, but youth won the palm, al- 

 though he had several falls in the struggle. Finally 

 my amour propre asserted itself, or possibly I had 

 become pumped, for I halted — not so my companion, 

 he rapidly disappeared through the labyrinth of 

 shrubs. 



To my relief I found that no bear was in pursuit, 

 so placing my rod against a stalwart hemlock, I as- 

 cended to its branches to take a view of the surround- 

 ings. For a long time I could not observe Bruin, 

 but at length discovereu a large mass of black fur, 

 accompanied by two similar small ones which pos- 

 sessed animation, and were evidently engaged in 

 search of food. They gradually quitted the damp, 

 low-lying ground and gained an acclivity, where the 

 largest beasi commenced drawing broken fragments 

 of " wind-falls " on one side, while the smaller ones 

 feasted upon the beetles and grubs that thus became 

 exposed to view. 



The parent — for evidently such the larger one was 

 — had neither heard nor winded us, so was perfectly 

 ignorant that her industry and strength were forming 

 a subject of wonder to a son of Adam. In the end 

 their search for insects took the interesting family 

 party out of view, so I descended to join my com- 

 panions. 



The day by this time was far spent, and, neither of 

 us having arms, we hurriedly retraced our steps to 

 the settlement, determined t revisit the scene on the 

 morrow ; this we did, and although accompanied by 





