had just set a powerful snare
for bears. Soon after starting for home, the hunter, discovering that
he had left his pipe by the trap, told his son to go on to camp, and he
would return to recover his treasure. On arriving at the snare, he saw
his pipe lying just beyond his reach at the back of the loop, but
instead of walking round the brush fence and picking it up from behind,
as he should have done, he foolishly put his leg through the snare in
order to reach and dislodge his pipe. By some evil chance his foot
caught upon the loop; and instantly he was violently jerked, heels over
head, into the air, and there hung head downward struggling for his
life. He had made the tossing-pole from a strong tree, up which his
son had climbed with a line, and by their combined weight they had
forced the tree top over and down until they could secure it by setting
the snare. The tossing-pole, when the snare went off, sprung up with
such force that it not only dislocated the hunter's right leg at the
knee, but it threw his knife out of its sheath, and, consequently, he
had no means by which he could cut the line, nor could he unfasten it
or even climb up--for he was hanging clear of the tree. Presently,
however, he began to bleed from the nose and ears; and in his violent
effort to struggle free, he noticed that he was swinging from side to
side; then it dawned upon him that if he could only increase the radius
of his swing he might manage to reach and seize hold of the tree, climb
up to slacken the line, unfasten the snare, and set himself free.
This, after much violent effort, he finally accomplished; but even when
he reached the ground, everything seemed utterly hopeless, for on
account of his dislocated leg, he could not walk. So there he lay all
night long. During twilight, as fate ordained, the wounded man had a
visitor; it was a bear, and no doubt the very bear for which he had set
his snare. But the bear, in approaching, did not notice the man until
it was almost on top of him, and then it became so frightened that it
tore up into a neighbouring tree and there remained for hours. By
midnight, however, it came down, and then it was the suffering hunter's
turn to become alarmed, for the big brute passed very close to him
before it finally walked away. A little after sunrise the hunter's son
arrived, but not being able to carry his father, and fearing lest the
bear might return before he could secure help, he decided