rapids.  After scratching his ear with one of his hind feet, and his side with the other, he turned and walked deliberately from our sight into the forest.  By this time, the boat with the dogs came in sight, and we beckoned its occupants to come to us.  One of the hounds only had ever seen game of this kind.  But Cullen declared that there was no game that they would not follow when once fairly laid on.  We wanted that bear.  It was the only one we had seen; indeed it was the only one I had ever seen wild in the forest.  We went to the spot where we last saw him, and there in the sand, by the side of the boulder, was his great track, almost like a human foot.  Cullen called the attention of the dogs to it, and hallooed them on.  They took the scent cheerfully, and with a united and fierce cry they dashed away in pursuit.  They had ran but a short distance, when they seemed to become stationary, and deep, quick baying succeeded the lengthened and ringing sound of their voices.

“Treed, by Moses!” cried Cullen, as he dashed forward, the rest of us following as fast as we could.

“Not too fast,” said Martin, “not too fast.  There’s no hurry; he won’t come down unless our noise frightens him.  Let us go quietly; there’s plenty of time.  Belcher has got his eye on him, and will stay by him till we come.”  We travelled quietly, and as silently as we could for near half a mile, and as we rounded a low but steep point of a hill, there sat bruin, some twelve rods from us, in the forks of a great birch tree, forty feet from the ground, looking down in calm dignity upon the dogs that were baying and leaping up against the tree beneath him.  Did anybody ever notice what a meek, innocent look a bear has when in repose?  How hypocritically he leers upon everything about him, as if butter would not melt in his mouth?  Well, such was the look of that bear, as he peered out first on one side, then on the other of the great limbs between which he was sitting, secure, as he supposed, from danger.  But he was never more mistaken in his life.  In watching the dogs he had failed to discover us.  We agreed that three should fire upon him at once, reserving the fourth charge for whatever contingency might happen.  Smith, the Doctor, and Spalding sighted him carefully, each with his rifle resting against the side of a tree, and blazed away, their guns sounding almost together.  It was pitiful the scream of agony that bear sent up.  It was almost human in its anguish.  It went ringing through the woods, dying away at last almost in a human groan.  After struggling and clasping his arms for a moment around the great branch of the tree, his hold relaxed, he reeled from side to side, and then fell heavily to the ground, with three balls within an inch of each other, right through his vitals.  He was larger than a medium sized animal of his species, and in excellent case.