In the fall and winter the flesh of the musk-ox is very good indeed, but in the spring it is not so nice.  It then smells like your sister’s glove-box (if she uses musk), only about one hundred times as strong.  If we were to cut up one of these animals when his flesh is in this condition, we would find it almost impossible to get the smell off of our knives.  The winter is certainly the time to shoot this game, for then not only is his flesh very good, but his skin is covered with very long and warm hair, and we would find it even better, to keep us warm, than a buffalo robe.

[Illustration:  THE MUSK-OX AND THE SAILOR.]

While we are thinking of skins, we might as well get a variety of them, and we will find the fur of the brown bear very valuable.

So now for a brown bear.  He, too, is found in the regions of ice and snow, and in the North of Europe he is hunted by the peasants in a way which we will not imitate.  When they find a den or cave in the rocks in which they think a bear is concealed, these sturdy hunters make all sorts of noises to worry him out, and when at last the bear comes forth to see what is the matter, he finds a man standing in front of his den, armed with a short lance with a long sharp head, and a bar of iron placed crosswise on the handle just below the head.  Now, a full-grown brown bear is not afraid of a man who is armed with a little weapon like this, and so he approaches the hunter, and rearing on his hind legs, reaches forth his arms to give the man a good hug, if he comes any nearer.

[Illustration:  HUNTING THE BROWN BEAR.]

The man does come nearer, and, to the bear’s great surprise, he thrusts forth his lance, which is longer than it looked, and drives the head of it into the animal’s breast.  The iron bar prevents the lance from entering too far into the body of the bear—­a very necessary precaution, for if it was not there, the bear would push himself up along the handle of the lance and have his great paws on the man in a minute or two.  But the bar keeps the bear back, and the loss of blood soon renders him so weak that the hunter can throw him down and despatch him.  It is strange that the bear never tries to pull the lance out of his body.  He keeps pressing it in, trying all the time to get over it at his enemy.

This may be a good way to kill a bear, but I don’t like it.  It is cruel to the animal, and decidedly dangerous to the hunter.  If I could not get a bear skin in any other way than by killing the animal with a spear, I would let the bear keep his fur.  If we see any brown bears we will shoot them with our rifles, a much safer and more humane method than the pike fashion.