ey some sixty
yards off. Immediately I caught the loom of some large, dark object; and
another glance showed me a big grisly walking slowly off with his head
down. He was quartering to me, and I fired into his flank, the bullet,
as I afterwards found, ranging forward and piercing one lung. At the
shot he uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy
gallop, while I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off. After
going a few hundred feet he reached a laurel thicket, some thirty yards
broad, and two or three times as long which he did not leave. I ran up
to the edge and there halted, not liking to venture into the mass of
twisted, close-growing stems and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted,
I head him utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from the heart of the
brush. Accordingly, I began to skirt the edge, standing on tiptoe and
gazing earnestly to see if I could not catch a glimpse of his hide. When
I was at the narrowest part of the thicket, he suddenly left it directly
opposite, and then wheeled and stood broadside to me on the hill-side, a
little above. He turned his head stiffly towards me; scarlet strings of
froth hung from his lips; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom.

I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the
point or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the
great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the
blood foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs;
and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the
laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. I waited until he came to a
fallen tree, raking him as he topped it with a ball, which entered his
chest and went through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved
nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I had struck him. He
came steadily on, and in another second was almost upon me. I fired for
his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing
his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I
pulled trigger; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was
his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge
carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of
bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground; but he recovered himself
and made two or three jumps onwards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple
of cartridges into the magazine, my rif