me up with him."

"How do you know about that, Alex?" demanded John.

"It's our business to know about such things," answered Alex, smiling.

All the boys now could see where the bear had scrambled up the bank,
and where it had gone through the bushes on its way to the forest,
leaving a plain blood trail on the ground.

"Moise will lead on the trail," said Alex. "He's more Injun than I am.
In some ways I can beat him, in others he can beat me. He is one of
the best trailers on the river."

Moise now was a different man from the talkative companion of the
camp. He was very silent, and advanced cautiously along the trail, his
eyes studying every record of the ground and cover which had been left
by the wounded animal. Once in a while he pointed silently to a broken
bush or to a drop of blood. After a while he stopped and pointed to a
tree whose bark was ripped off.

"Heem awful mad," whispered Moise. "S'pose you'll seen heem here,
he'll fight sure. He'll bite all the tree an' fight the bush."

After a while Alex showed them a deep excavation in the soft dirt.

"He'll dig hole here an' lie down," said Moise. "Plenty mad now,
sure!"

They kept on after the trail, following it deeper into the forest and
higher up the slope, minute after minute, for a time which seemed
short, but which really was over an hour and a half in extent. Moise
still remained silent and not in the least excited, and Alex still
continued to pick his berries and eat them leisurely as he followed
along in the rear. Once they lost the trail on an open hillside
covered with wintergreen plants, and the boys thought the hunt was
over. Moise however, swung around like a hound on the trail, clear to
the other side of the hill, and in the course of a few minutes picked
up the spoor again when it struck softer ground beyond. They passed on
then, moving upward deeper into the forest for some minutes, until at
length Moise turned about.

"About five minute now, we'll found heem," said he, quietly.

"How does he know, Alex?" demanded Jesse, who was farther to the rear.

"Easy enough," answered Alex. "He says the bear has lain down ten
times now, and he would not do that unless he was very weak. He would
travel as far as he could. Now he is lying down very often. I'm sorry,
but I don't think we'll get any fight out of this bear. Moise thinks
you'll find him dead."

Surely enough, they had hardly gone another hundred yards before
Moise, stepping back