A True Bear Story

Stranser (up in Maine)- "I presume you hse seen a go??, niany bears in your time." Hunter- " 'Bout a thousand." Stranger - "I wish you would teil me bear story - a true one, of course, . --ery detail exactly as it happened." Hunter - "En? Want a true bear story? Wall, I swan! All right, I'll give yeh one; but sho! you won't care for it. Back in the sixties, ?bout sixtynine, I think, or mebby it was seventy, I was walkin' along, not thinkin' oí anything in particular, except Josh Peabody's chances of election - Josh and me were great friends - when all of a sudden, just as I'd crossed a log over a stream, and sat down on the further end of the log for a lítele rest. I feit a jar, and, looking up, there at the other end of the log, with one paw on it, was the biggest, ugliest-Iookin' bear you ever see. I had my gun, but it was empty, and I hadn't as rnuch as a bird-shot to load with- just going home, you know. My hunnn'-knife had got lost somehow that samo day, and all I had was an old-fashioned Barlow pocket-knifa, a good deal the worse for wear. Well, I looked at that critter, and he looked at me for 'bout two minutes, when I sort o' sidled off the log and crept along up the stream abou twenty f eet, mv itime openin' the old Barlow knife. 1 couldn't get any further on account of a high bank, a thicket of laurels, and the jagged roots of a big tree that was blown over. Well, there 1 stood, and there that critter stood, me eyin' him and hiin eyin' me, fer full ten minutes, when all of a sudden . Mighty good cigar this is." Stranger- "Yes, yes; go on." Hunter- "Oh! yes. All of a sudden that bear crossed over the log and walked away."