“Bime-by I hit upon the likeliest little birch saplin’, right in the middle of a clump of jack pine.  Jest as I raised my hand-ax I happened to cast my eyes down the hill.  There was a big bear comin’ up, swingin’ along on all fours, right in my direction.  It was a bald-face, but little I knew then about such kind.

“‘Jest watch me scare him,’ I says to myself, and I stayed out of sight in the trees.

“Well, I waited till he was about a hundred feet off, then out I runs into the open.

“‘Oof! oof!’ I hollered at him, expectin’ to see him turn tail like chain lightning.

“Turn tail?  He jest throwed up his head for one good look and came a comin’.

“‘Oof! oof!’ I hollered, louder’n ever.  But he jest came a comin’.

“‘Consarn you!’ I says to myself, gettin’ mad.  ’I’ll make you jump the trail.’

“So I grabs my hat, and wavin’ and hollerin’ starts down the trail to meet him.  A big sugar pine had gone down in a windfall and lay about breast high.  I stops jest behind it, old bald-face comin’ all the time.  It was jest then that fear came to me.  I yelled like a Comanche Indian as he raised up to come over the log, and fired my hat full in his face.  Then I lit out.

“Say!  I rounded the end of that log and put down the hill at a two-twenty clip, old bald-face reachin’ for me at every jump.  At the bottom was a broad, open flat, quarter of a mile to timber and full of niggerheads.  I knew if ever I slipped I was a goner, but I hit only the high places till you couldn’t a-seen my trail for smoke.  And the old devil snortin’ along hot after me.  Midway across, he reached for me, jest strikin’ the heel of my moccasin with his claw.  Tell you I was doin’ some tall thinkin’ jest then.  I knew he had the wind of me and I could never make the brush, so I pulled my little lunch out of my pocket and dropped it on the fly.

“Never looked back till I hit the timber, and then he was mouthing the biscuits in a way which wasn’t nice to see, considerin’ how close he’d been to me.  I never slacked up.  No, sir!  Jest kept hittin’ the trail for all there was in me.  But jest as I came around a bend, heelin’ it right lively I tell you, what’d I see in middle of the trail before me, and comin’ my way, but another bald-face!

“‘Whoof!’ he says when he spotted me, and he came a-runnin.’

“Instanter I was about and hittin’ the back trail twice as fast as I’d come.  The way this one was puffin’ after me, I’d clean forgot all about the other bald-face.  First thing I knew I seen him mosying along kind of easy, wonderin’ most likely what had become of me, and if I tasted as good as my lunch.  Say! when he seen me he looked real pleased.  And then he came a-jumpin’ for me.

“‘Whoof!’ he says.

“‘Whoof!’ says the one behind me.