d dogs and the
following morning started out early on the track of old bruin. We
soon struck the trail and located the beast in a big ravine.
Stationing the men around where the bear was likely to break cover, I
went in with the dogs to drive him out.

Now there was one young chap among the crowd called Dan, who proved
to be of rather a timid nature. The battle which soon followed proved
very short owing to the number of guns opened on the bear the moment
he broke cover and he was soon dispatched and nearly as soon skinned
and cut up. But when I looked for Dan he was nowhere to be found. A
searching party was organized and after beating the bush for some
time, poor, frightened Dan was finally located in the top of a small
beech tree and came tumbling down inquiring if the bear was "sure
dead."

* * *

I have often thought I would like to relate some of my experiences in
the woods while deer hunting. Many a time while following a herd of
deer or a wounded one over ridge after ridge, has the sun set and the
stars come out and I found myself many miles from my cabin or any
habitation. Then I would find a large fallen tree, that laid close to
the ground, gather a pile of dry limbs and bark, scrape away the snow
from the log, often the snow being a foot deep, build a fire where I
scraped the snow away. When the ground became thoroughly warm, I
would rake the coals and brands down against the log, put on more
wood, and then I would place hemlock boughs on the ground, where I
had previously had the fire. Soon they would begin to steam and after
frizzling some venison (if I chanced to have it) before the fire I
would take off my coat, lie down on my stomach, pull the coat over my
head and shoulders and sleep for hours before waking. Sometimes I
would have the skin of a bear to put over me, and for doing these
things my friends would scold me, but the reader will know, if he has
the blood of a hunter in him, that I enjoyed it.

But this is not what I started to write about, it was of a day's hunt
after a bear on the 16th day of December, 1903. On the day previous,
the afternoon sun sinking to rest in the west, casts its rays for a
moment upon a solitary hunter's cabin in the hills of old Potter,
then the bright glows faded away, the sun disappeared behind the
mountains and it was a soft beautiful twilight, while I stood just
outside the cabin door meditating. Mart (that is an old liner who had
come to my cabin to have a fe