180 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
like that of a broad, short, bare human foot. It was 
none other than the paw-mark of Mr. Bear, who 
is a plantigrade and walks flat-footed. Although I 
was sorry to miss seeing him, yet I was glad that it 
was the bear and not the man who had to dive 
through that underbrush. 
Another time I was camping in Maine. Not far 
from our tent, which we had cunningly concealed 
on a little knoll near the edge of a lonely lake, I found 
a tiny brook which trickled down a hillside. AlI- 
though it ran through dense underbrush, it was possi- 
ble to fish it, and every afternoon I would bring back 
half a dozen jeweled trout to broil for supper. One 
day I had gone farther in than usual, and was stand- 
ing silently, up to my waist in water and brush, 
trying to cast over an exasperating bush into a little 
pool beyond. Suddenly I smelt bear. Not far from 
me there sounded a very faint crackling in the bushes 
on a little ridge, about as loud as a squirrel would 
make. As I leaned forward to look, my knee came 
squarely against a nest of enthusiastic and able- 
bodied yellow-jackets. Instantly a cloud of them 
burst over me like shrapnel, stinging my unprotected 
face unendurably. As I struck at them with my 
hand, I caught just one glimpse of a patch of black 
fur through the brush on the ridge above me. The 
next second my hand struck my eye-glasses, and 
they went spinning into the brush, lost forever, and 
I was stricken blind. Thereafter I dived and hopped 
like a frog through the brush and water, until I came 
out beyond that yellow-jacket barrage. I never saw 
