mile--I reached a pine
with low branches. Like a squirrel I ran up this--straddled a limb
high up--and gazed back.

My sensations then were dominated by the relief of salvation. I became
conscious of them. Racing blood, bursting heart, labored pang of
chest, prickling, burning skin, a queer involuntary flutter of
muscles, like a palsy--these attested to the instinctive primitive
nature of my state. I heard the crashing of brush, the pound of soft
jumps over to my left. With eyes that seemed magnifying I gazed to see
a big red woolly steer plunge wildly down the slope and disappear. A
third shock possessed me--amaze. I had mistaken a wild, frightened
steer for a red cinnamon bear!

I sat there some moments straddling that branch. Then I descended, and
went back to the place I had dropped my rifle, and securing that I
stood a moment listening. The hounds had taken the chase around below
me into the gorge and were drawing away. It was useless to try to
follow them. I sat down again and gave myself up to meditation.

I tried to treat the situation as a huge joke, but that would not go.
No joke indeed! My horse had made me risk too much, my excitement had
been too intense, my fright had been too terrible. Reality for me
could not have been any more grave. I had risked my neck on a stubborn
coward of a horse, I had mistaken a steer for a bear, I had forgotten
how to manipulate the borrowed rifle. These were the careless elements
of tragedy. The thought sobered me. I took the lesson to heart. And I
reflected on the possible point of view of the bear. He had probably
gone to sleep on a full stomach of juniper berries and a big drink
of spring water. Rudely he had been routed out by a pack of yelping,
fiendish hounds. He had to run for his life. What had he done to
deserve such treatment? Possibly he might have killed some of Haught's
pigs, but most assuredly he had never harmed me. In my sober frame of
mind then I rather disapproved of my wholly unjustifiable murderous
intent. I would have deserved it if the steer had really been the
bear. Certainly I hoped the bear would outrun the hounds and escape. I
weighed the wonderful thrill of the chase, the melody of hounds, the
zest of spirited action, the peril to limb and life against the thing
that they were done for, with the result that I found them sadly
lacking. Peril to limb and life was good for man. If this had not been
a fact my performance would have been as cowardly as