“No,” replied Oscar.

“But that was n’t equal to something a man came across in the woods the other side of these hills, two or three years ago,” continued Jerry.  “What do you suppose it was?”

“I don’t know; was it a moose?” inquired Oscar.

“No,” replied Jerry; “moose come down into this neighborhood, once in awhile, but that was n’t what I was going to tell you about.  There is a road through these woods, a little beyond the hills.  It is n’t travelled much, except by the loggers in the fall and spring.  A man was riding along this road, one afternoon in summer, when he suddenly came across a monstrous black bear.  As soon as the bear saw him, he squat down on his haunches, right in the middle of the road, and began to show his teeth.  The man didn’t dare to drive by him, and his horse was so frightened that it was as much as he could do to hold him in.  He had a loaded revolver with him, but he knew there was n’t much hope of killing the bear with that.  So he turned his horse about, and concluded to go back to the nearest house, and get a gun and somebody to help him kill the bear.  The bear sat still, watching him, as much as to say, ’If you’ll let me alone, I ‘ll let you alone;’ but just as the man was starting up, he thought he would try his pistol, and so he blazed away at the bear.  Two or three of the shot hit the bear in the shoulder.  They did n’t hurt him much, only enough to rouse his dander; but he sprang up as quick as lightning, and started after the team.  The man whipped up his horse, and the bear ‘pulled foot’ after him, and did n’t give up the race till he had run about a quarter of a mile.  The man said if he had been afoot, the bear would have beat him at running, but he could n’t keep up with the horse.

“Well, the man went back three or four miles, and got another man to go with him in search of the bear.  They armed themselves with guns and hunting-knives; but when they drove back to where the man met the bear, they could n’t find anything of him.  They traced his tracks into the woods, but after awhile they lost them, and as it was getting late, they gave up the hunt; and nobody hereabouts has seen that bear from that day to this.”

“Perhaps he’s about here now—­who knows?” said Oscar.

“No, I guess he went right back to the place he came from,” replied Jerry.  “Somebody would have seen him, if he ’d stayed around here.”

“Where do you suppose he came from?” inquired Oscar.

“From way back in the woods, fifty miles from here,” replied Jerry.  “There had been great fires in the woods that summer, and I suppose he got burned out, or frightened, and that was the reason he came down this way.”

“I should like to meet such a customer,” said Oscar; “only I should want to have a good double-barrelled gun with me.  I read in a newspaper, the other day, about a boy up in New Hampshire, who met a bear and two cubs, all alone in the woods.  He had a gun with him, and killed the old one, and one of the cubs, but the other cub got off.  That was doing pretty well, wasn’t it?”