ngeance against that bear. He'd be almost sure to come back for more,
so for a while after that we always put the sheep in the barn at nights
and set a trap by the remains of the one he had eaten.

"Everybody hated bears, and hadn't much pity for them; still they were
only getting their meat as other wild animals do, and we'd no right
to set such cruel traps for them as the steel ones. They had a clog
attached to them, and had long, sharp teeth. We put them on the ground
and strewed leaves over them, and hung up some of the carcass left by
the bear near by. When he attempted to get this meat, he would tread on
the trap, and the teeth would spring together, and catch him by the leg.
They always fought to get free. I once saw a bear that had been making
a desperate effort to get away. His leg was broken, the skin and flesh
were all torn away, and he was held by the tendons. It was a foreleg
that was caught, and he would put his hind feet against the jaws of the
trap, and then draw by pressing with his feet, till he would stretch
those tendons to their utmost extent.

"I have known them to work away till they really pulled these tendons
out of the foot, and got off. It was a great event in our neighborhood
when a bear was caught. Whoever caught him blew a horn, and the men and
boys came trooping together to see the sight. I've known them to blow
that horn on a Sunday morning, and I've seen the men turn their backs on
the meeting house to go and see the bear."

"Was there no more merciful way of catching them than by this trap?"
asked Miss Laura.

"Oh, yes, by the deadfall that is by driving heavy sticks into the
ground, and making a boxlike place, open on one side, where two logs
were so arranged with other heavy logs upon them, that when the bear
seized the bait, the upper log fell down and crushed him to death.
Another way was to fix a bait in a certain place, with cords tied to
it, which cords were fastened to triggers of guns placed at a little
distance. When the bear took the bait, the guns went off, and he shot
himself.

"Sometimes it took a good many bullets to kill them. I remember one old
fellow that we put eleven into, before he keeled over. It was one fall,
over on Pike's Hill. The snow had come earlier than usual, and this old
bear hadn't got into his den for his winter's sleep. A lot of us started
out after him. The hill was covered with beech trees, and he'd been
living all the fall on the nuts, till he'