proached, as it soon did in the form of Uncle
Nathan. He happened that way soon after the bear had moved. Seeing her
track in the snow, he concluded to follow it. When the bear had passed,
the snow had been soft and sposhy, and she had "slumped," he said,
several inches. It was now hard and slippery. As he neared the tree the
track turned and doubled, and tacked this way and that, and led through
the worst brush and brambles to be found. This was a shrewd thought of
the old bear; she could thus hear her enemy coming a long time before he
drew very near. When Uncle Nathan finally reached the nest, he found it
empty, but still warm. Then he began to circle about and look for the
bear's footprints or nail-prints upon the frozen snow. Not finding them
the first time, he took a larger circle, then a still larger; finally he
made a long detour, and spent nearly an hour searching for some clew
to the direction the bear had taken, but all to no purpose. Then he
returned to the tree and scrutinized it. The foliage was very dense, but
presently he made out one of the cubs near the top, standing up amid the
branches, and peering down at him. This he killed. Further search only
revealed a mass of foliage apparently more dense than usual, but a
bullet sent into it was followed by loud whimpering and crying, and
the other baby bear came tumbling down. In leaving the place, greatly
puzzled as to what had become of the mother bear, Uncle Nathan followed
another of her frozen tracks, and after about a quarter of a mile saw
beside it, upon the snow, the fresh trail he had been in search of. In
making her escape the bear had stepped exactly in her old tracks that
were hard and icy, and had thus left no mark till she took to the snow
again.

During his trapping expeditions into the woods in midwinter, I was
curious to know how Uncle Nathan passed the nights, as we were twice
pinched with the cold at that season in our tent and blankets. It was
no trouble to keep warm, he said, in the coldest weather. As night
approached, he would select a place for his camp on the side of a hill.
With one of his snow-shoes he would shovel out the snow till the ground
was reached, carrying the snow out in front, as we scrape the earth out
of the side of a hill to level up a place for the house and yard. On
this level place, which, however, was made to incline slightly toward
the hill, his bed of boughs was made. On the ground he had uncovered he
built his f