etty good evidence that he was near by.

Black Bruin heard Alec hacking and hewing at the trap, but did not
consider it anything out of the ordinary. This queer creature was
always hacking and hewing at the trees. He had often seen his
handiwork piled up in long straight piles. Once for mere amusement he
had scattered a pile in every direction.

When he at last came suddenly upon the pen-trap one day, after it had
been baited for some time, he gave a surprised grunt and backed off a
few feet to get a better view. It looked very queer and very
suspicious. He was quite sure that it had not been there a week ago,
for he was well acquainted with the region.

It was made of trees, but trees usually grew upright, and they always
had limbs upon them. The ends of the logs were hacked and green like
the sticks in the wood-pile.

Black Bruin circled around and around the pen-trap, gradually drawing
nearer and nearer to it. Finally he came close enough to peep in at
the doorway. Inside it was rather dark, but at last he both saw and
smelled the calf's head that hung from the spindle. Meat had also been
rubbed about the doorway, which was most tantalizing, especially as
Black Bruin had not had any for three days.

He licked the particles of meat that still stuck to the logs about the
doorway and then started to go in, but it seemed dark and suspicious;
beside there was a very faint suggestion of man-scent inside. Outside
the rain and the wind had obliterated all foreign scents. Man-scent
meant danger. Man was no friend of the wild creatures, so Black Bruin
backed out and very reluctantly went away.

When Alec visited his trap the next day, he did not go near enough to
see the bear-tracks in the fresh dirt about the door, for he did not
care to leave fresh man-scent in its vicinity; so he was rather
discouraged with the failure of his efforts. The trap had now been set
for a week and nothing apparently had been near it.

The next day Black Bruin again visited the trap, but his suspicions
were still keen and as he had killed a wood-chuck that morning, his
appetite was not ravenous, so he again left the bait untasted.

The third time that he came near the spot, which somehow had a
fascination for him, he smelled a new and bewitching odor, one that a
bear is almost powerless to resist. It brought back to his mind that
old tantalizing picture of the row of white beehives in the back yard
of the farmhouse.

The s