70 WILD BROTHER 
hooks attached. One of these flies, a red ibis, 
claimed the bear’s attention at once. He was inter- 
ested in flies. They were good to eat, and if insig- 
nificant little house-flies and blue-bottles were ap- 
petizing, this great glorious scarlet insect should 
be delicious. Forthwith he snapped up the ibis. 
It caught in his tongue, and he fell to the floor. 
As I looked in, a wild and painful sight greeted 
my eyes. One of the hooks on the other end of the 
leader had caught in a crack in the floor, and Bruno 
was doing a circus act. Held fast by the strong 
gut leader, with his tongue stretched far out beyond 
his nose, he swung round the circle in mad haste, 
howling with rage and pain. What to do I did n’t 
know. Angling is a favorite pastime of mine, and 
in the pursuit of this sport I have hooked many 
strange fishes; but here was a catch that was new; 
I had never had a bear on a hook, and now that I 
had one on, the question was how to get him off! 
It would certainly be a dangerous operation to 
extract that fly — like fooling with a buzz-saw. 
If we could only quiet him a bit and divert his 
mind. Comrade suggested that I begin on the end 
farthest removed from the seat of trouble — that 
sensitive point, his tail. A brilliant idea; but it 
could n’t be carried out. Bruno was revolving so 
fast that this member could not be reached. How 
could we check his wild career? Happy thought: 
