tack him, and concealing themselves by a
small eminence came unperceived within forty paces of him: four of the
hunters now fired, and each lodged a ball in his body, two of them
directly through the lungs: the furious animal sprung up and ran
openmouthed upon them; as he came near, the two hunters who had reserved
their fire gave him two wounds, one of which breaking his shoulder
retarded his motion for a moment; but before they could reload he was so
near that they were obliged to run to the river, and before they
reached it he had almost overtaken them: two jumped into the canoe; the
other four separated, and concealing themselves in the willows fired as
fast as each could reload: they struck him several times, but instead of
weakening the monster each shot seemed only to direct him towards the
hunter, till at last he pursued two of them so closely, that they threw
aside their guns and pouches, and jumped down a perpendicular bank of
twenty feet into the river; the bear sprang after them, and was within a
few feet of the hindmost, when one of the hunters on shore shot him in
the head and finally killed him: they dragged him to the shore, and
found that eight balls had passed through him in different directions;
the bear was old and the meat tough, so that they took the skin only,
and rejoined us at camp, where we had been as much terrified by an
accident of a different kind. This was the narrow escape of one of our
canoes containing all our papers, instruments, medicine, and almost
every article indispensible for the success of our enterprise. The canoe
being under sail, a sudden squall of wind struck her obliquely, and
turned her considerably. The man at the helm, who was unluckily the
worst steersman of the party, became alarmed, and instead of putting her
before the wind luffed her up into it. The wind was so high that it
forced the brace of the squaresail out of the hand of the man who was
attending it, and instantly upset the canoe, which would have turned
bottom upwards but for the resistance made by the awning. Such was the
confusion on board, and the waves ran so high, that it was half a minute
before she righted, and then nearly full of water, but by baling out she
was kept from sinking until they rowed ashore; besides the loss of the
lives of three men who not being able to swim would probably have
perished, we should have been deprived of nearly every thing necessary
for our purpose, at a distance of between