The Bear—A Collection of Incidents 
Recalled froma Life-time’s Intimate 
Study of Bruin and Told with the 
Delightful Simplicity Characteristic 
of the True Woodsman 
it a week or two later way out on one of my trails. I suppose the 
reason he took it was because I had been using scented soap. 
I never knew a bear to molest a woman or a child. I remember 
an old lady telling me once about an adventure she had with a 
bear when she was only seven years old. She lived in a back 
settlement with woods quite near the house. 
A* the edge of the clearing was a great quantity of raspberries 
and she often used to pick them. One day a big black dog, 
as she thought, was picking close to her. When he saw her, he 
came up and smelled her all over, particularly her ears which 
he licked, then he went off picking berries as before. 
When she returned to the house and told about the dog picking 
berries with her, her folks thought it strange as there was no 
big black dog in the neighborhood. They decided to investigate 
and she went with them. The bear was still where she had left 
him but soon made his getaway when he saw she had company. 
When on my first trip to Quebec bear hunting, I stopped with 
an old gentleman who had lived on the river there for twenty 
years. It was a long way from any settlement and he kept 
cattle and sheep which fed along the river. He often saw bears 
‘in the neighborhood quite close to them, but he never lost a sheep 
nor any of his stock. I was surprised to hear this for I knew 
of some settlements where bears were killing sheep, cattle and 
hogs and I know they kill moose, caribou and deer. 
Once, in summer while looking out at a new trail following up 
a deadwater, I found large bear tracks going in the same direction 
as a moose was going. I paid no attention to it as it is quite 
common to see such tracks, but after travelling between half 
and three quarters of a mile, I heard a loud noise and turning to: 
my Indian asked what he thought it was. He said he didn’t 
know, so I threw off my bundle and told him to bring it as I 
wanted to take a hand in the game. I went in the direction of 
the noise and shortly heard it again. I got to the place as soon 
as possible and found a large bear had a moose down. He was 
lying full length on the moose’s back licking blood off his neck. 
When the moose attempted to struggle and roar, the bear would 
seize him by the neck and shake him and bite. I didn’t stop 
long to look but put two bullets thru the bear and broke up the 
fight. The moose’s back was broken and his neck was badly 
mangled, so I knocked him on the head and cut his throat to end 
his misery. 
ONE spring, the last of April, I was preparing to quit hunting 
and was going over a line of traps to spring them. I came 
upon the tracks of two moose that had come on the trail and 
were following it in the same direction as I. The trail was old 
snow shoe tracks which would nearly carry them and they were 
following it for that reason. In a short time, two bears came 
on the same trail and as soon as they smelled the moose tracks 
followed after and came up to them about a quarter of a mile 
further on. The moose had separated, one taking each side of 
the trail. I decided to follow on and see what happened. I had 
gone but a few hundred yards when a bear came up to one of 
the moose and made an attempt to attack it; he repeated this 
several times. Finally, the moose got into a thick growth where 
he had taken a stand and prépared to fight. It looked from the 
blood and hair scattered around as though there had been a 
severe battle. The bear had evidently got the worst of it and 
had gone up a big fir tree full of limbs mowing a road through 
nearly to the top. The moose had evidently taken his time and 
(Continued on page 51) 
Page 9 

Guess I'll follow this old trail a ways. Now let’s see— 
that MIGHT be a bee tree over yonder. H’m, suppose 
it’s too late for honey, though! 

Ah—I have it, fresh venison! If my memory serves me 
right there are deer over in Balsam Gulch. How about 
a yearling buck? 
