WITH BRUTES 69

cry out at one and the same time half a dozen women,
each of whom vies with her neighbour in shouting.

“What news? We are travelling; how could we
guess what happens in these remote parts?”

“Something awful we call it, and that is why our
men are away. That was terrible! Oh! the poor boy,
he must indeed be endowed with magic powers,”
precipitately remark the women, all of whom insist
upon having their say in the matter.

“But what is it? Now, you, Julie, tell us, and
let the others keep their peace,” orders the priest.

It requires all the authority of the missionary to
prevent the others from talking at the same time and
making things unintelligible. By dint of careful
listening, this is what the travelling party learns.

Not far from the point just reached, at the outlet
of a small lake, a few hunters were sleeping under a
tent when, early in the morning, one of them, a young
man named Charlie, was awakened by the honks of a
passing flock of wild geese. Looking up, he perceived
on the brow of a grassy hill beyond the little river what
his experienced eye at once recognized as a genuine
grizzly bear. Desirous of having all the glory of the
deed for himself, instead of sharing it with his two
companions, Charlie did not wake them up as he
should have done, but immediately crossed the creek,
lifted up his hand in the air as all hunters do to ascer-
tain whence the breeze came, so as to govern himself
accordingly,° and, by a round-about way approached
the monster, unseen. Then he sent him a first bullet
from his Winchester.

But so excited was he that in the reloading the key

5 As bears havesuch a keen hearing and smell, they are always careful

lest the breeze should carry to the game the sound of their footsteps and
the odour of their own person.