THE BEAR MAKES A JOURNEY 75 
One morning there was great excitement about 
the camp. During the night there had been a 
tragedy on the farm: a relative of Bruno’s had 
come down from the mountain into the pasture, 
killed one of the squire’s sheep, and gone off with 
the carcass. There was blood and wool on the 
ground where the deed had been done, and from 
this spot a trail of down-trodden grass showed 
where the bear had dragged his victim into a 
thicket. Here the earth was torn and trampled and 
soaked with blood. A few ribs and the bones of the 
legs lay scattered about, and near-by we found the 
pelt of the sheep done up neatly into a roll with the 
wool side out. The bear had skinned the sheep, 
quite as a man would have done, before he carried 
off the meat. He must have been disturbed at his 
work, for some distance away in his flight he had 
dropped and left in his tracks a good hind-quarter 
of mutton. 
Thinking that old Bruin would come back in the 
night for the rest of his plunder, the squire set a 
bear-trap and used the meat for bait. But the bear 
was too wary or too well satisfied with what he 
already had taken; for though the trap lay a long 
time with its powerful jaws open to receive him, 
he failed to return for what he had left. That he 
and perhaps several other bears were still in the 
neighborhood was evident: a few days later we 
