an they do over the
sight of man. Later on, when I went hunting with Oo-koo-hoo, he used
to make me laugh, for at one moment he would be a jolly old Indian
gentleman, and just as likely as not the next instant he would be
posing as a rotten pine stump that had been violently overturned, and
now resembled an object against which a bear might like to rub his back
and scratch himself.

Often have I proved the value of the old hunter's methods, and I could
recite not a few instances of how easy it is to deceive either birds or
animals; but I shall mention only one, which happened on the borderline
of Alaska. I was running through a grove of heavy timber, where the
moss was so deep that my tread made no sound, when suddenly rounding a
large boulder, I came upon a black bear less than fourteen paces away.
It was sitting upon its haunches, directly in the footpath I was
following. As good luck would have it, I saw him first, and for the
fun of it, I instantly became an old gray stump--or tried to look like
one. Presently the bear's head swung round, and at first he seemed a
bit uneasy over the fact that he had not seen that stump before. It
appeared to puzzle him, for he even twisted about to get a better view;
but after watching me for about five minutes he contentedly turned his
head away. A few minutes later, however, he looked again, and becoming
reassured, yawned deliberately in my face. But by that time, being
troubled with a kink in my back, I had to straighten up. Then, strange
to say, as I walked quietly and slowly round him to gain the path
ahead, the brute did not even get up off his haunches--but such
behaviour on the part of a bear rarely happens.

Perhaps you wonder why I didn't shoot the brute. I never carry a gun.
For when one is provided with food, one can carry no more useless thing
than a gun; so far as protection is concerned, there is no more need to
carry a gun in the north woods, than to carry a gun down Broadway; in
fact, the wolves of Broadway--especially those of the female
species--are much more dangerous to man than the wolves of the Great
Northern Forest.

SUNDAY IN CAMP

Next morning being Sunday, we did not strike camp, and the first thing
the women attended to, even while breakfast was under way, was the
starting of a fire of damp, rotten wood, which smoked but never blazed,
and over which, at a distance of about four feet, they leant the
stretched deerskins, hair side up, to dry