eb single-handed, but young
hot-blooded fellows, who have got their names to make, are less
cautious, and sometimes even court the combat, as was the case in the
present instance with reckless Gibault Noir.

For half an hour, Gibault went over the ground at a sort of half-walk,
half-trot, stopping occasionally to examine the prints of the bear more
narrowly when they passed across hard ground that did not take a good
impression. At length he came to a deep gully or creek, where the
bushes were so dense that he could not see far through them in any
direction. Here he halted, re-examined his priming, and, peering
cautiously through the underwood, advanced with much greater
deliberation and care than heretofore.

In descending the gully, Gibault stumbled once or twice, and made one or
two crashing bursts through bushes that would have proved quite
impervious to most men. After much toil he reached the bottom, and,
standing there, up to the ankles in a small rivulet, gazed upward at the
bank he had now to ascend.

"Vraiment, it be uncommonly difficile," said he, addressing himself to
the task, while the perspiration began to roll down his forehead.

At last he reached the top of the bank on the other side, and, after
panting for some time, began to look for the bear's footprints; but
these could not now be found. In his scramble through the gully he had
lost them, and the ground on the side he had just reached was so hard
and rocky that it seemed to him doubtful whether it was capable of
receiving any visible impression from a bear's paw. It was just
possible, too, that the animal had found the descent of the gully as
difficult as he himself had; in which case it was highly probable that
it had used the course of the rivulet as a pathway.

For a moment, the little Canadian meditated a second descent into the
gully for the purpose of settling this point, but, having not yet quite
ceased to pant from his recent exertions, he thought better of it, and
determined to make a further examination of the ground where he was.
After doing so for a quarter of an hour, his exertions were rewarded by
the discovery of what appeared to be a track. It was not very distinct,
but it was sufficiently so to induce him to follow it up with renewed
ardour.

Presently he came upon a spot where the ground was not so thickly
covered with underwood, and where, in some places, it was so soft as to
show an exact print of the foot of the an