ins. I tried his patience I saw, for he
growled and growled louder and more fiercely, and then began to lick his
paws, as a baby does its fingers to amuse itself when hungry. Two or
three times he began to climb up the tree; but the way in which I
flourished the pole in his face, and his recollection that he could not
reach me at the end of the branch to which I retired, made him speedily
again descend. The sun was now up and warm, and it struck me that if I
could dry some of my powder I might turn the tables on him, and eat him
instead of his eating me. I therefore cleared out a hollow in a branch,
into which I poured a charge of powder, and then cleaned my rifle and
picked out the touch-hole.

I was determined not to be idle, and so, remembering my fish-hooks, I
set to work to manufacture a line. The threads were short, but I
knotted them neatly. I tried the strength of each one separately, and
those which broke I strengthened with line, which I twisted up. I thus
sat knotting and spinning, with as much coolness as I could command,
till I had finished my line, and thought my powder was dry. I then put
up my line, carefully loaded my rifle, and muttered, "Now, Master Bruin,
look out for yourself." Whether he divined what I was about, or had
grown tired of waiting for his breakfast and was going elsewhere in
search of it, I cannot say, but before I could find a satisfactory rest
for my piece, so as to point it down at him, he turned round and began
trotting briskly away. I instantly fired, in the hopes of obtaining
some bear steaks for my breakfast. The rifle went off, nearly knocking
me over from my bough, and the ball hit him, but not in a vital part,
for on he went, growling furiously, till he was lost to sight in the
depths of the forest, and I must say that I heartily hoped I might never
see his ugly face again. I suspect that I considerably damped his
appetite for breakfast. As mine was sharper than ever, and I could not
make it off bear, I descended from my perch that I might try and catch
some fish. I quickly cut a fishing-rod, and a piece of light bark to
serve as a float, and my movements being hastened by hunger, in a few
minutes, having caught some creatures on the bank to serve as bait, I
was bending over the stream as assiduously as old Izaak Walton himself.

What was my delight in a few minutes to feel a bite! I was an expert
fisherman, but so great was my agitation that I could scarcely gi