BRINGING HOME THE BEAR . 
83 
“I hear Merrill caught a bear Saturday, and 
brought it out at Piper’s.’ 9 
46 That so? How big was it?” 
44 A small one, a two-year-old, probably. It 
was in one of his traps and he shot it.” 
44 Well, I ’ve kept up with him this time. I 
shot one less than an hour ago, and he warn’t 
in any trap, either.” 
I looked at the man wonderingly. There had 
been no unusual spark in his eye, flush on his 
bronzed cheek, or spring in his heavy step. He 
had not boasted, or even spoken of his achieve¬ 
ment until I touched his pride by my tale of 
his rival’s success. Would he have gone home 
without telling me? I think so. Yet this 
meeting with a bear, alone, on the high ledges 
of Chocorua, had been one of the joys of this 
man’s life. Many a weary hour had he carried 
his magazine rifle over the ledges, treading 
softly, keeping eye and ear alert, hoping to see 
Bruin on his feeding-ground. A year before 
he had trapped and killed some of the great 
creatures; but shooting a beast caught in a 
forty-pound steel trap is tame sport compared 
with facing a free bear on the open ledges. 
Before the hunter left me, we had arranged 
that soon after sunrise on the following morn¬ 
ing he was to pass through my dooryard on his 
way to the spot where, under those black clouds, 
poor Bruin was lying dead. 
