THE BLACK BEAR. 269 



to muse over it. Sixty-seven winters have whitened my 

 locks, but I am a youth again this cold, bitter night, as 

 eager to join in a chase of this kind as I was on that memo- 

 rable morning. ' Yet I am sad. Why should I be their sur- 

 vivor by so many years? I, whom if death had taken 

 'twere no loss to the world nor society, while those who 

 have gone had so much at stake — so many friends to whom 

 their departure was a grievous calamity. What would 

 have been their feelings could each have unveiled the 

 future, and have looked twenty years ahead? 



I close my eyes, and still their faces are seen on every 

 side. The wind still moans in fitful gusts — now it is a fierce 

 howl — and louder rattles the sleet against the panes. Can 

 there be some unseen spirit near, even in this room, who 

 calls back from the murky shadows of the past this weird 

 scene, and impels me to put on paper the recollections of 

 that day? Or has the soul of my comrade in battle, my 

 boon companion in sports of the forest, come back to earth, 

 and is he now holding silent communion with my own 

 spirit, almost emancipated from its dull clog of mortality? 

 And does he bid me record the events of this chase, the 

 most memorable of his short life? Ah! it must be so. 

 Involuntarily I seize the pen, to write the thoughts that 

 come trooping from the reservoir of memory, too fast for 

 anything but an electric pen and an eager hand to record. 



Taylor and Littlejohn have mounted their horses, and 

 the snow-flakes have hidden them from view as they hurry, 

 with the speed of the wind, to get in hearing distance of the 

 pack, which has now crossed the river. 



"Take your time, Colonel," said Phillips, "and eat 

 a-plenty. It will be a long way in the night before we 

 again see this camp-fire, in my opinion. We are going to 

 1 have the severest chase ever seen in this bottom. I had no 

 idea of starting a Bear until we got to the forks of the 

 rivers. That Bear is poor; and I believe it is a barren 

 female, else the old hussy would have been in her bed, 

 sucking her paws and thinking of the babies she was to 

 rear. As it is, she will never take a tree or go to bay. 



