When we were within a few feet of the root, Mr. Howard on one side and the writer on the other side, suddenly, without any warning whatever, Bruin came out of his hole like a shot out of a gun and nearly landed on Mr. Howard, who sprang backwards to escape him. Mr. Howard's feet became tangled in the thick brush, he fell backwards and before he could regain his feet, Bruin had gone over the brow of the ridge, into the laurel out of sight. Mr. Howard was not able to get in a shot at Bruin, as I was on the other side of the root and on higher ground, I managed to empty both barrels of my rifle at him through the thick brush, but Bruin went on down the hill, through the laurel, apparently unhurt. After following the trail of Bruin for some distance, we began, now and then, to find a little blood, where the bear had crawled over a log or rubbed against the laurel. We followed him until we found one or two places where he had broken down a few laurel and scratched about in trying to make a bed, so we thought the better plan was to let Bruin go for the night and let him make his bed. But we did not go to camp empty handed for good luck favored Mr. Howard in killing a good, big deer on our way to the shanty. After leaving the trail of the bear, we followed up a spur of the main ridge that led to camp, Mr. Howard going up one side of the spur while I took the other spur. Just before reaching the top of the spur, I heard Mr. Howard shoot and in a few minutes I heard him shouting for help. When I got across the ridge to where he was, I found him dressing a good sized buck. As it was getting dark we lost no time in taking the entrails out of the deer, cutting a withe with a hook, which we hooked into the lower jaw of the deer. We hooked ourselves to the withe and made lively tracks to the shanty, where we could talk and laugh of the day's hunt. * * * We were up early the next morning and had our lunch packed in our knapsack, ready for an early start. It had turned warm during the night and the light snow that was on the ground, was fast disappearing. So we lost no time in getting back to where we had left Bruin's track the night before. We could still manage to follow the trail on the snow and we soon found where Bruin had broken down a few laurel and tried to make a bed. But he would not stop long, apparently, when he would move on for a short distance and again break down a few laurels as before to make a nest. We could see a little more blood at each place where he stopped than the one before.