bump that he got at the foot of the tree, brought him to
his senses with a jerk. Right among the yelping, snarling pack he had
fallen, and in sheer desperation he struck out right and left.

Two of the hounds went yelping to the rear. Then an excited boy
leveled a double-barreled shotgun at the bear and discharged both
barrels.

At the same instant the best hound in the pack jumped into range and
rolled over kicking upon the ground. He had received the full charge.

Half-blinded and dazed by the blow upon his head, and made frantic by
the yelping of the pack, the shouts of the men and the roar of their
thunder, Black Bruin put all his remaining strength into flight.

Not knowing or seeing which way he went, he fled straight toward the
hunter with the Winchester with mouth wide open.

Horrified at the sight, which the hunter interpreted as a desperate
charge upon the part of the bear, the city Nimrod delivered one wild
shot and then fled for his life, as he thought.

This stampeded the entire hunt, and the terrified men fled as fast as
their legs could carry them until they left the spot far behind.

It was a question whether the frantic beast tried harder to get away
from the hunters, or they from him.

In the village grocery the stories that were told that night made the
small boy's hair stand up with fright and his blood run cold with fear.

As for Black Bruin, with his wounded paw upon which he limped
painfully, and with his bleeding scalp, he concluded that the part of
the country in which he had made his home for several months, was no
place for him, so before another sunrise he put many miles between
himself and the scene of his narrow escape from the hunters.

Nor did this one night's journey calm his fear. Night after night he
fled, always going in the same direction, which, as he fled northward,
carried him farther and farther into the wilderness.

At last in a wild country of rugged mountains and deep, thickly wooded
valleys, where the habitat of man seemed far distant, he ceased his
flight.

There in the wilderness, where lumbermen alone penetrated, Black Bruin
denned up and slept away his fifth winter. His bed was made deep under
the top of a fallen hemlock, where the snow drifted above him and
covered him with soft white blankets. The only evidence that the outer
world had that a bear was sleeping beneath was a small hole in the snow
kept open by the warm breath of the sleeper.

C