The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Wilderness, by Charles Dudley Warner

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Title: In the Wilderness

Author: Charles Dudley Warner

Last Updated: February 22, 2009
Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #3132]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WILDERNESS ***

Produced by David Widger

IN THE WILDERNESS

By Charles Dudley Warner

CONTENTS:

HOW I KILLED A BEAR
LOST IN THE WOODS
A FIGHT WITH A TROUT
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER
A CHARACTER STUDY (Old Phelps)
CAMPING OUT
A WILDERNESS ROMANCE
WHAT SOME PEOPLE CALL PLEASURE

I. HOW I KILLED A BEAR

So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter
with an Adirondack bear last summer that in justice to the public, to
myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of
the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that
the celebration of the exploit may be excused.

The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was not hunting for
a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me.
The fact is, that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance, the
usual way. There is among the Adirondack visitors always a great deal of
conversation about bears,--a general expression of the wish to see one
in the woods, and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or
she chanced to meet one. But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only
to a favored few.

It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of
any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers at our
cottage--there were four of them--to send me to the clearing, on the
mountain back of the house, to pick blackberries. It was rather a series
of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with
bushes and briers, and not unromantic. Cows pastured there, penetrating
through the leafy passages from one opening to another, and browsing
among the bushes. I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told
not to be gone long.

Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took a
gun. It adds to the