114 THE BLACK BEAR

him over like it would a rabbit. If he had a kick left in
him he never had a chance to give it, as he was smothered
by the hounds almost before he was down.

Afterwards I reloaded my gun, stopped the hounds
worrying the bear, examined the effects of the shot and
then suddenly remembered the grouse. The head and
neck was still in my left hand but the body was gone !

Shortly afterwards three men appeared on the scene.
They had heard the hounds, grabbed their rifles, and
hurried to take part in the sport, but had arrived too late.
One of them told me that he had seen fresh signs of another
bear that morning not more than a mile or so away, and
as they were all very anxious to hunt him I agreed to go
with them after lunch. As the bear happened to have
been killed close to where a canoe could be brought I
went off to fetch it while they dragged the bear out. Then
all but one of them, who stayed with me to start the
skinning, went back across the river to have their mid-day
meal,

An hour or so later, when we had just finished our
skinning, we noticed one of the men returning in his canoe.
As we were then on top of a high bank we did not actually
see him land, though we heard him throw down his paddle
and pull the canoe up. The next second a shot rang
out which was followed by three or four awful screams,
and we jumped up in time to see the unfortunate man
stagger round in a circle backwards and then fall. He
was dead before we reached him. Examination showed
that his right hand was powder-burnt, and it was clear
that he had picked up his rifle by the muzzle, that he had
caught the hammer on the bow of the canoe just enough
to draw it back sufficiently to explode the cartridge
which was in the breech and send the bullet straight into
the centre of his heart.

This terrible incident was a warning, not only to me,
but to many others who were inclined to be careless about
having cartridges in the breech of their rifles ; from that
day on the breech of my rifle has been empty until I am
ready to shoot.

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