The Arizona sentinel., 1888-09-01

l ihUA"nOu OAId1 NuSu l IlrSb caugn
 sight of the bear that day, nly blood
 froze. We'll, when caught sight O.
 him as Twas hastening away from him
 my blood thawed instantly, and not
 only thawed but rose at once te boil ] ing heat. The bears heart had in turn
 proved untrue to me and was now firm.
 ly fixed on the scattered contents of my
 creel. Bruin was lunching on my
 trout, and l stopped and gazed in in.
 dlgnation. As l gazed the bear raised
 aloft noble two-pounder with which
 l had struggled up stream and down,
 through noisy rapids and the quiet
 waters of dark pools, among treacher-
 ous roots and around the projecting
 angles of the dangerous rocks. For
 twenty good minutes had fought that
 monarch of the brook before he had
 turned his furnished, quivering side
 upward and surrendered-and here was
 mangey, refuse-eating thief of the
 swamps, dining on its delicate, savory
 richness! It was more than l could
 stand, and I advanced upon the sacri-
 lGg1ous brute with murder in my heart.
 l am sorry to confess that it didn't get
 out of my heart, for the best thing I
 could do was to pick up big stone
 and chuck it at the bear The stone
 hit the bear on the side of the head,
 and Bruin yelped like whipped dog.
 But he kept right on with his meal of
 trout. At that moment, much to my
 surprise, Bruce reappeared on the
 scene. He had evidently discovered that he had ceased to be the one alto
 gether lovely in the bears estimation, and had slipped back to reconnoiter.
 Seeing the sudden and unexpected
 burst of courage on my part he had
 braced up himself, and as the stone 1 threw struck the bear the dog sailed in with amazing fury and attacked Bruin in the rear. The bear turned and made an ugly dash at Bruce. Bruce retreated with neatness and dis patch, and the bear promptly returned to his pleasant task of absorbing my catch of trout. Ichucked stones and Bruce returned to his nip- ping the bears heels, but the bear sim ply howled when he was hit and dashed at the dog at convenient intervals. As the trout disappeared one by one, and with aggravating rapidity, my courage gradually acted as Bob Acres did, and, ea1sc fn iY, oil probability now had it in for Bruce and me more than ever, and that as soon as he had encircled the last of my trout he would proceed without hesita- tion to give his attention to us, be- gan to put more space between myself and the bear preparatory to grand and masterly retreat when the time came. 1 backed away. Bruce had ap- parently got on such good terms with himself that he imagined the bear was afraid to engage him in actual conflict, and so he remained on the field, nag ging at Bruin.
 The last trout disappeared. The bear turned and bore down on Bruce like an animated cyclone. I turned and ran. Bruce, in some way or other, evaded the rush of the bear and fol- lowed me. The bear followed Bruce. The procession was a lively one. The bear, being loaded with trout, didn t make as good time as he might have done, but it was good enough to suit me. was twenty-five feet ahead of Bruce, and Bruce was twenty-five feet ahead of the bear and gaining. The indications were that Bruce would soon put me second in the race, when I caught my foot in root and tumbled heels over head. rolled over and over and came up on my feet without making a stop in my course, but my remarkable drop and my pickup seemed to confuse my dog, and he fumbled around in the brush so that the first thing he knew the bear was dead onto him. There was an immediate entanglement of bear and dog, and during the diversion made for tree. had never climbed a tree in my life, but wasn't the whisk of a lambs tail in shining up that one As soon as got there turned to take a survey of the field.
 '1 don't know how it ever happened, but my dog had managed to disen- 5angle himself from the bear, and was even then busy in putting great gaps lf daylight between himself and Bruin. lU may hprv-v<sen UnaI trout nau, amply rewarded the bear for his days sport, or 1t may have been that in the little wrangle between him and the log the latter had developed points hat surpassed the bear, but which ever 1t might have been, Bruin stopped 1 finally, gazed after the dog, cast a glance at me safely crouching in theil of the tree, and then turned l md slOuched back toward the brush. |
 ''l was not inclined to lay the slight | st obstacle in the way of the bears departure, but Bruce, who had stoppedl n his wild flight, seemed suddenly to lave come under the control of the Id boy himself; and what did he doJ ut hristle up and start after that re- reating bear as if he hadn't had ex-. erience enough with it already to sat- ;fy any dog that ever lived. The bear. -as either unaware of Bruce's advanceI r didn't care any thing about it, for it. as not until the dog nipped him in ne of the hind legs that he turned he turn was fierce one, and Bruce anne tearing back toward my tree gain, faster than he had gone away. he bear stood a moment gazing after le dog, as if undecided what to do