A DISAPPOINTMENT. 317 
Just as I was thinking of closing up for the night, my 
companion shouted to me that there was a bear in the 
water. On looking up stream, sure enough Bruin was in 
sight, stemming the current and boldly pushing for this 
side. With hasty impulse I laid my rod down to grasp 
my rifle, but, alas! my attendant, fatigued with carrying it, 
and seeing small prospect of its being required, had left 
it leaning against a rock some distance off. You may well 
imagine my disappointment, for when the bear left the wa- 
ter he was not over twenty-five yards above my position. 
This animal, judging from his size, must have been quite 
four hundred pounds—a size much greater than it general- 
ly attains in the north-west. Until he had firmly gained 
his footing he had not observed us, and the ludicrousness 
of his alarm and astonishment when he became aware of 
our vicinity was laughable in the extreme. Off he went 
with a rush into the brush, making dry and withered Jimbs 
crash before him. 
As the constant and severe attention of the flies put fish- 
ing out of the question, and I had become surfeited with 
tobacco from the number of cigars I had consumed, under 
the fallacy that the smoke would deprive me of their com- 
pany, I was compelled, as a last resource, to start on a tour 
of inspection, at the same time hoping that my exertions 
would be rewarded with the discovery of some quadruped 
or bird with which I had been previously unacquainted. 
On entering the scrub-bush the mosquitoes became more 
numerous, and I have little hesitation in’ saying that the 
blood-suckers of Arkansas and Mississippi, which bear the 
same name, are far from proficients when you compare 
them with those of Labrador. After half an hour’s rough 
scrambling through the morass, I succeeded in gaining 
more open ground. Rising toward the upper ridges of 
high lands, the squaw-berry and blue-berry grew in profu- 
