Black Bruin | Page 3

upon his hind legs, swooping the berries into his mouth with ravenous delight. At such a time his grin of benevolence is very apparent.
The cubs den up with the old bear the first fall, but usually shift for themselves when the new cubs come, although it is not an infrequent sight to see an old bear with two sizes of cubs following her.
As a rule, the different varieties of black bear are not dangerous. While they will occasionally charge the hunter when wounded, they usually flee away at their best pace when danger appears.
Even when interested with berry-picking or hunting, the bear is watchful and wary and as his scent and hearing are of the keenest, he is hard to surprise. It is probably true that his eyesight is not as keen as his other senses.
The black bear is hunted both on the still hunt, and with dogs. When dogs are employed, a large pack is used, and they merely run the bear until it is treed or brought to bay, when it is shot by the hunter. Dogs are of little, if any, use in hunting grizzlies.
There are several varieties of large bears, probably all variations of grizzlies, which are differentiated locally. Some of these are the roachback, the silver tip, the California grizzly, the plains bear, the smut-face, etc.
In the olden days before the grizzly became wise, he would charge anything that walked either on two or four feet. But he has now learned all about firearms, and is as willing to run from the hunter, as is his cousin, the black bear.
The bear's manner of hunting large game is usually by ambush. As most of his victims are more fleet of foot than he, he does not undertake to run them down in the open, but if he can get them at disadvantage in thick cover, or at the lick, this is his opportunity.
In the Adirondack country and in Northern Maine, it is a common sight to see a young bear about a farmhouse, where he is as much at home as the farm-dog. Many of the summer hotels, in this region, keep a tame bear to amuse the visitors.
These bears are obtained as cubs from any one who is fortunate enough to discover a bear's den and who has the good luck to find the old bear away from home and the cubs at his mercy.
A likely cub can usually be obtained in either Maine or Northern New York for five or ten dollars.
Bears occasionally stray down the Green Mountains into Western Massachusetts, where they inhabit the Hoosac Mountains, which are a continuation of this range.
Very recently a bear was killed near October Mountain, upon Mr. Whitney's extensive game-preserve. He had been hanging about the mountain all summer and had given two belated pedestrians a lively sprint only the night before his Waterloo. Being emboldened by the seeming servility of the neighborhood, bruin finally went to a farmhouse and, forcing the kitchen door, marched boldly into the well-ordered room to see what they were going to have for dinner. While waiting for this meal, he amused himself by tumbling the pots and pans about. This enraged the thrifty housewife, who seized a double-barreled shotgun standing in the corner and discharged both barrels simultaneously at the intruder. When the smoke cleared away, it was discovered that she had bagged a bear weighing three hundred pounds.
The dancing bear of song and story, as well as of real life, has long been the delight of children, but he is not now seen as frequently as of yore. Bears in the circus to-day play a minor part in the performance.
This short introductory chapter is the pedigree and characteristics in brief, of Ursus, the bear, whose varieties, like those of Reynard, the fox, are legion.
I have tried to give the reader some idea of the bear in general, but these facts about bruin must be varied as the climate varies between the arctic regions and the tropics. If a meat diet makes man cross and brutal, and a fruit and vegetable diet makes him amiable and indolent, they affect bruin in the same manner.
But wherever you find a bear, be he a grizzly, black, or polar, basking in the tropical sun, or freezing upon the ice-floe, he will still be the same droll old chap, shuffling and shambling, sniffing and inquiring with his keen nose. If he be the smaller black or brown bear, he will often be found in the company of man, conducting himself with dignity, and generally showing much good behavior for a wild beast.

Black Bruin
CHAPTER I
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
Outside, the fitful early April wind howled dismally, swaying the leafless branches of the old elm, and causing them to rub complainingly against the gable end of the