On my return home from my first essay in ox-driving, or rather ox-killing, I found Dennis, our Irish servant, waiting for me with the greatest impatience.

“Och, sir,” he exclaimed; “if you had but been with me you might have shot a bear.  I was out in the bush searching for the cows, and just as I was crossing the Big creek, near the beaver meadow, I heard a noise from a thicket of cedar bushes close by me, and thinking it might be one of the lost cows I ran forward to see, when to my astonishment and dismay I came suddenly upon a large bear.”

“Well,” said I, “what did you do?”

“Faith, then, sir, to tell you the truth, I did not do much only took to my heels, and ran home as fast as I could to tell you; as I thought yer honour might perhaps get a shot at the baste, and, troth! he warn’t in the laste bit of a hurry to get out my way, sure.”

“Well, Dennis, only show me the brute, and it shall be a hard case if I do not make the addition of fat bear to eat with the lean beef, with which I have already stocked the larder.”

I loaded my gun with ball, and in company with Dennis and his father started for the place where Master Bruin had been seen.  I took Neptune with me a remarkably fine Irish greyhound one of the most powerfully built dogs of that breed I had ever seen, and well he proved his strength and courage this day, as you shall hear.

After proceeding nearly two miles in an easterly direction close to the edge of the beaver meadow,* Neptune suddenly raised his head and looked round.  In the next instant he was dashing along in full chase of Mr. Bruin, who was making the best of his way up a hill on the opposite side of the meadow.

[* These meadows are to be found within two or three miles of each other on almost every creek or small stream in Canada West.  Those industrious animals, the beavers, build their dams across the creeks in a very ingenious manner, with clay and brush-wood.  It is very astonishing what ingenuity they display, and what sagacity, almost amounting to reason, they show in the choice of situation for the erection of these dams.  It has been asserted that some years ago, when the French were masters of the country, the Indians cut away the dams, and killed all the beavers they could possibly find, as they did not wish the reservoirs where the beavers bred to fall into the hands of their white brethren.  The size of these meadows varies from two or three acres to two or three hundred, and in some few cases is much larger.]

We joined in the chase with the greatest alacrity, but not in time to witness the first set-to between these savage opponents; for while we were gaining the brow of the hill a desperate fight was going on only a few yards from us.  Neptune sometimes having the best of it sometimes Bruin.  I found it quite impossible to fire for fear of killing the dog.  We then tried to pull him off so as to enable me to shoot the bear.  This we found equally difficult, the dog had such fast hold of his throat.  He was, indeed, perfectly furious.