St. Landry democrat., 1878-01-19

ClcAElnS ditci ClcdIlHS. 4 COulu ACd1 Oi1
all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking
Of sticks, and the stamping of cattle that
were taking refuge in the thicket from
the flies. Occasionally, as I broke
through covert, encountered meek
cow, who stared at me stupidity for a
second and then shambled off into the
brush; became accustomed to this dumb
society, and picked on in silence, attrib-
uting all the wood-noises to the cattle,
thinking nothing of any real bear. In
point of fact, however, I was thinking
all the time of nice romantic bear, and,
as picked, was composing a story about
generous she bear who had lost her cub,
and who seized small girl in this very
wood, carried her tenderly off to her cave,
and brought her up ON bears milk and
honey. When the girl got big enough
to run away, moved by her inherited in
stincts, she escaped and came into the
valley to her fathers house (this part
of the story was to be worked out, 80
that the child would know her father by
some family resemblance, and have some
language in which to address him), and
told him where the bear lived. The
father took his gun, and, guided by the
unfeellng daughter, went into the woods
and shot the bear, who never made any
resistance, and only, when dying, turned
reproachful eyes upon her murderer.
The moral of the tale was to be kindness
to animals.
was in the midst of this tale, when
happened to look some rods away to
the other edge of the clearing, and there
was a bear! He was standing on his
hind legs and doing just what I was do
ing,-picking blackberries. With one
paw he bent down the bush, while with
/ the other be ela#ed the berries into his
mouth, green ones and all. To say that
| was astonished is inside the mark. I
suddenly discovered that 1 didn't want
to see a bear, after all. At about the
same moment the bear saw me, stopped
eating berries, and regarded me with
glad surprise. It is all very well to i'm.
agine what you would do under such cir
cumstances. Probably you wouldn't do
it; | didn't. The bear dropped down
on his lore feet, and came slowly towards
me. Climbing tree was of no use with
80 good climber in the rear; if l start
ed to run, had no doubt the bear would
give chase, and although bear cannot
run downhill as fast as he can run up
hill, yet I felt that he could get over
this rough, brush-tangled ground faster
than I could.
The bear was approaching. It sud-
denly occurred to me how could divert
his mind until could fall back upon my
military base. Ny pail was nearly tull
of excellent berries,-much better than
the bear could pick himself. put the
pail on the ground and slowly backed
away from it, keeping my eye, as beast
tanners do, on the bear. The ruse sue
ceeded.
The bear came up to the berries and
stopped; not accustomed to eat out of a
pail, he tipped it over and nosed about
in the fruit, "gorning" (if there is such
a word) it down, mixed with leaves and
dirt, like a pig. Whenever he disturbs
maple.sugar camp in the spring, he
always upsets the buckets of syrup and
tramples round in the sticky sweets,
wasting more than he eats. The bears
manners are thoroughly disagreeable.
AS soon as my enemy's head was
down, I started and ran. Somewhat out
Of breath and shaky, reached my faith
tul rife. 1t was not a moment too soon.
I heard the bear crashing through the
brush after me. Enraged at my duplic-
| ity, he was now coming on with blood in
his eye. felt that the time of one of
us was probably short. The rapidity of
thought at such moments of peril is well
known. l thought an octave volume,
bad it illustrated and published, sold
fifty thousand copies, and went to Eu-
rope on the proceeds, while that bear
was loping across the clearing. AS I
was cooking the gun, [ made hasty
and unsatisfactory review Of my whole
life. / noted that even in such COM
pulsory review it is almost impossible to
think of any good thing you have done.
The sins come out uncommonly strong.
recollected newspaper subscription I
had delayed paying, years and years ago,
until both editor and newspaper were
dead; and which now never could be
paid to all eternity.
The bear was coming on.
I tried to remember what I had read
about encounters with bears couldn't
recall an instance in which a man had
run away from bear in the woods and
escaped, although l recalled plenty
where the bear had run from the man
and got off, I tried to think what is
the best way to kill bear with gun,
when you are not near enough to club
him with the stock. My first thought
l. n L. L. L. IL