Should the place where he reaches the further shore be a high rocky bluff, he climbs this, rather than turn from his direct course. This may be pigheadedness or stupidity; be it as it may, he will not turn to a low-shelving beach a few yards at one side, but it never enters his head to take the easier landing. I once saw a bear swimming across near the discharge of a lake. There was a string of booms hanging down stream near the other shore and at right angles to where he was heading. He simply clambered over the boom logs and took the water again on the other side, instead of trotting along the boom to the shore. I was acquainted with an old Indian, who, knowing this trait of bears to land where they head for, did a deed of great nerve for a man of over sixty. He was visiting his fish net on the shore of a narrow lake, when he saw a large bear enter the water on the opposite side a little above, and head for the shore the old man was on. Old Pete had no gun, but he did not hesitate a moment, but caught up his hunting ax, and ran along shore to where the bear would land. The old man was plainly visible to the bear from the first, but Bruin kept on his direct course. Old Pete waded out from the shore nearly to his waist with ax unlifted, and waited. Everything depended on striking true, and at the proper and precise moment. He had the bear, it is true, at a disadvantage. Still, many a younger and stronger man would have declined the risk. Pete was successful; he buried the ax clean into the skull the first blow. Another instance I witnessed of a bear not turning aside for any obstacle: We were later than usual one evening on the water; my men were anxious to get to the portage before camping, and were tracking the canoe up the last mile at deep dusk. There were four men on the line ashore, and the bow and steersmen standing up in the canoe fending her off the rocks and shallows. My companion and I were sitting very quietly in the middle compartment of our large canoe; the men also were not in a talking mood, being tired and hungry. I was sitting on the side next the river and noticed a black object which at first I mistook for a stone, partly out of the water; but with a second, and more searching look, I made it out to be a bear coming straight toward the canoe.