all of my shots told, in a few hours I had killed plenty of game;
but becoming weary, as the intervals lengthened between the flights
of the birds, I sat down, and had already begun to nod dozingly,
when a startling splash, near the river bank, instantly aroused me.
Grasping my gun and springing upright, I looked in the direction
whence the sound had come; but, owing to the intervening mass of
tule, could not see what kind of animal--for such I at once
conjectured it must be--had occasioned my sudden surprise. Having
hitherto seen no domestic stock hereabouts, I therefore felt fully
satisfied that it could not belong to a tame species. Judging from
the noise of its still continued movements, it was of no small
bulk; and, if its ferocity were correspondent with its apparent
size, this was indeed a beast to be dreaded.

'The thought at once occurred to me that, as I possessed neither
oars nor other means of propulsion, it would be difficult to move
the boat from its mooring if chance or acuteness of scent should
lead the creature to my place of concealment. In short, this, with
various suggestions of fancy, some of them ludicrously exaggerated,
speedily made me apprehensive of imminent danger. Nor was my
suspicion unfounded, for a crisis was at hand.

'There was a space of clear water between the river bank and the
margin of the tule, in which the brute seemed to disport a few
moments; and then the rustling of the reeds indicated that it was
about to advance. With heavy footfalls it came toward me; as it
approached my nervousness increased; I could not mistake that
significant tread; undoubtedly it was a grizzly bear. But how could
I escape? Bruin, though his progress was not unimpeded, was surely
drawing near. Following my first impulse in this pressing
emergency, I placed myself forward in the boat, and, seizing a
handful of green blades on either side of it, endeavored, by
violently pulling upon them, to force the craft through the thick
growth which surrounded it. The headway of the skiff was slow, but
my efforts were not silent. In fact, the commotion occasioned by my
own panic became, to my hearing, so confounded with the sound made
by my floundering pursuer that my excited imagination multiplied
the single supposed bear, and the water seemed