ition,--evidently done by the bears to enable them to get
conveniently at the fruit. From the trees that had been treated in this
rough manner all the fruit had been stripped off as clean as if a party
of "cherry-pickers" had passed that way.

The ravages exhibited a very recent sign. Most of them must have been
done within a week; and one tree looked as freshly torn, as if it had
been pulled about that very morning.

Of course, with such indications before their eyes, our hunters were
advancing on the _qui vive_.--not knowing the instant that Bruin might
break out.

It would not be correct to say that they were proceeding with caution.
Had they been sufficiently cautious, they would not have been there
_afoot_. Of course they were on foot--since no horses could be procured
in these parts. To go afoot in pursuit of such game as grizzly bears
was the height of indiscretion; and the traders had told them so; but
they made light of what they had been told, for two reasons,--first,
because it was absolutely necessary they should kill a grizzly and strip
him of his skin; and secondly, because our young hunters, Pouchskin as
well, had but a very indefinite idea of the risk they were running.
They had heard that the grizzly was one of the fiercest of its kind; but
because it was called a bear, and they had now hunted and killed so many
other bears, they fancied this one might be as easily conquered as any
of its congeners. They had heard that these animals often turn tail and
run away at sight of man; but these stories are deceptive. The bears
that do so are either juvenile grizzlies or brown individuals of the
_versus americanus_--which are often mistaken for the grizzly.

With "old Ephraim" himself the case is quite different, as we have
already said. On sight of a human enemy, instead of running away, the
grizzly more frequently runs towards him, charging forward with open
mouth, and often without having received the slightest provocation.

Of this fact our hunters had proof almost upon the instant. They had
entered a wide tract, sparsely covered with trees; but such small trees,
and so thinly standing over the ground, that the hunters might have
fancied them to have been planted; and that they were entering within
the boundaries of some old orchard. The tract thus characterised was
about five or six acres in superficial extent; and surrounded by the
same kind of coppice that covered most of the face of the cou