'You ain't much used to "still-hunting," shaver; suppose you just wait here awhile, and I'll go on and see if that "bar" of yourn has any travelling left in him.' Snap did not much relish the idea, but even he felt that if the bear was to be approached unawares he, Snap Hales, ought not to be one of the stalking party. So he sat down on a log and wondered how long it would be before he too would be able to steal swift and silent through the forest, like the tall, lean figure which had just left him. There is, no doubt, a good deal to annoy a tender-foot at first in big-game shooting in America. For a grown man to realise that he has not yet learned to walk is a rather bitter experience, and yet not one man in a thousand can walk or 'creep' decently to game in timber, even after a good many seasons' experience. Though not nearly as cold on the Rosebud as it had been in that other forest, in which Snap passed a night a week previously, our hero was beginning to feel quite 'crisp' about the ears and nose before anything occurred to break the monotony of his watch. Listening intently, every sound in the forest came clearly to his ears. The loud bell-like note of a raven far overhead interested him. He always had thought at home that a raven had but one note, that hoarse funereal croak which, together with his colour, has got the bird such a bad name. And yet here was an unmistakable raven with quite a musical voice! Then a chipmunk came out of a hole in a log, the very one on which Snap was sitting, and regarded the intruder rigidly for a good five minutes, after which the pretty, impertinent little beast poured out a volley of chipmunk billingsgate at him, and with a whisk of his tail shot back into his house again. Snap saw the little squirrel-like head peeping at him again and again after that, curious, apparently, to see the effect of its oratory; but, being a decent lad, Snap didn't even shy his cap at his pretty reviler. By-and-by Snap heard a bough swing with a grating sound in the distance, and then, ever so softly, he heard, 'plod, plod,' 'plod, plod.' He could only just hear it, but he guessed in a moment whose slow, even tread that must be, and, brave lad as he was, the blood mounted up into his face, and his heart beat until it sounded as loud as the old dinner-gong at Fairbury. 'Ah!' he thought, 'Atkins has put up the bear after all, and here he comes, wounded and desperate, straight for me.'