w days' hunt) came out of the cabin and
I said, "old man, what are you thinking about?" The reply was, "just
watching the sun set." "Don't you think the coon will be out tonight
if it holds warm?" "I don't know what the coon will do, but I know we
went around a bear over in that jam in Dead Man's Hollow. (This
hollow is so called because a fisherman a few years ago, found the
body of a man who had gotten lost and died in the snow the winter
before).

Well what do you think you will do about it? I think we had better
turn in early so as to get an early start in the morning and see if
we can find where the bear is sleeping. "Agreed," said Mart, and we
were soon in bed, but it was a long time before I closed my eyes in
sleep for I was familiar with the woods in the neighborhood where the
bear was supposed to be and I mapped out and laid every plan that was
to be carried out the next day before I went to sleep.

At four o'clock in the morning we were astir and soon breakfast was
ready and eaten, lunch put up and at the break of day we were on our
way to where bruin was supposed to be, a distance of about five
miles, which is no small job for an old cripple like myself. After
about three hours we were on the ground where we were in hopes of
finding bruin. Mart was to circle several points outside of where we
thought the bear was snoozing; this was done to make sure that the
bear was in there. I took a position where the bear was most likely
to come out if he was there and should be started by Mart. My
position was in an open piece of timber on the point of a hill and
near a very thick jam of trees that had been broken down two years
before by a heavy ice storm and near the bear track where he had gone
in several days before. Mart was to make another circle somewhat
smaller than the one he had previously made for we now knew that the
bear was in the jam of timber.

After completing the second circle Mart was to drop below the jam
where we were quite sure bruin was napping and work his way through
the fallen timber. This worked all right, for soon I heard Mart cry
out: "Look out, he is coming." Soon I heard the crashing of the brush
and could tell that bruin was coming directly toward me, and in
another minute he broke into the open timber. My rifle was already
pointed in that direction and bruin had scarcely made two jumps in
the open timber when I fired. The bear made a loud noise like that of
a hog and I knew that he wa