THE END OF THE TRAIL 131 
the bear lost his temper and turned upon him. 
Then, with one smash of his powerful fore-arm, he 
felled him to the floor and, springing with a sav- 
age growl upon the prostrate man, set his wicked 
teeth through the fleshy muscles of his arm just 
below the shoulder. 
In telling me about it afterward, the keeper 
averred that it was his own fault. He had always 
allowed the bear to play with the tools when he was 
not using them. “Why,” he explained, “he would 
have had me dead in a minute if he had a wanted 
to! He was just like a boy that’s been teased. 
He only give me one lick and a bite for disturbing 
him. I got to my feet, picked up my things, and 
walked right by him. He stood close beside the 
door when I went out, and he never offered to 
touch me again. I was only laid up for two days, 
and I don’t hold it against him.” 
In July, 1917, when Bruno was fourteen years 
old, he suddenly became paralyzed in his hind- 
- quarters, and a few days later, apparently without 
any suffering, he passed away. Black bears have 
been known to live in confinement to an age of 
twenty years, but fifteen years is probably about 
the average length of their existence. Just how 
long a wild bear usually lives under natural sur- 
roundings out in the open, it is hard to state, for 
