dozen or more boys. Each has a club about the
size and shape of a baseball club, but made of straw {294} tied around two
or three switches and tightly sewn up in burlap.--One big fellow is
selected for the bear. He has a school bag tightly strapped on his
back, and in that a toy balloon fully blown up. This is his heart. On
his neck is a bear-claw necklace of wooden beads and claws. (See cut.)

[Illustration: Bear-claw necklace, claw and bead.]

He has three dens about one hundred yards apart in a triangle. While
in his den the bear is safe. If the den is a tree or rock, he is safe
while touching it. He is obliged to come out when the chief hunter
counts one hundred, and must go the rounds of the three till the hunt
is settled.

The object of the hunters is to break the balloon or heart; that is,
to kill the bear. He must drop dead when the heart bursts. The hunter
who kills him claims the necklace.

But the bear also has a club for defence. Each hunter must wear a hat,
and once the bear knocks a hunter's hat off, that one is dead and out
of this hunt. He must drop where his hat falls.

[Illustration: Straw club.]

Tackling of any kind is forbidden.

The bear wins by killing or putting to flight all the hunters. In this
case he keeps the necklace.

The savageness of these big bears is indescribable. Many lives are
lost in each hunt, and it has several times happened that the whole
party of hunters has been exterminated by some monster of unusual
ferocity.

This game has also been developed into a play.

{295}

Spearing the Great Sturgeon

This water game is exceedingly popular and is especially good for
public exhibition, being spectacular and full of amusement and
excitement.

[Illustration: Wooden Sturgeon.]

The outfit needed is:

(1) A sturgeon roughly formed of soft wood; it should be about three
feet long and nearly a foot thick at the head. It may be made
realistic, or a small log pointed at both ends will serve.

(2) Two spears with six-inch steel heads and wooden handles (about
three feet long). The points should be sharp, but not the barbs.
Sometimes the barbs are omitted altogether. Each head should have an
eye to which is attached twenty feet of one-quarter inch rope. On each
rope, six feet from the spearhead, is a fathom mark made by tying on a
rag or cord.

(3) Two boats with crews. Each crew consists of a spearman, who is
captain, and one or two oarsmen or paddlers