'You Russian,'--he turned to me suddenly,--'be ready for "Him" on the road. Take care! Take care! Though a bear is big, "He" can go as quietly as a shadow when "He" wants to fall upon a man unawares. I advise you to stay the night with us; there's no joking with "Him"! Once I was not afraid either, but now;--there--look!' He undid his shirt sleeve. It was a terrible sight. The left shoulder, which, as I had previously noticed, the old man could make little use of, was shrunk and thin to the elbow, like a mere bone covered with skin, and those veins and muscles which were unscathed, wound round the bone close to the surface. There was a mass of white scars, crossing in different directions. 'I have killed many,--many!' he continued, 'and now I know that they will eat me for it,--eat me because I'm afraid. It happened like this. It was rather later in the season than this; it was freezing. I got ready my spring-gun for elk-shooting, and God gave me one of these big beasts. To have carted its flesh, skin, and inside along a bad road would have needed seven or eight horses. So I decided to build a larder on the spot, and to lay the elk in it for a time, till the road became frozen. I and my boy set out early to work. The lad was lingering a little way behind me, and I was walking quite quietly along the road, and had just passed the willow which grows on the hill not far from here, when "He" came upon me. He ran towards me like a dog, and before I could look round "He" was already standing on his hind-legs. I reached out for my knife, but tried in vain to drag it from the sheath. There was a night frost, and on coming out of the house I had not wiped my knife, as I should, after eating, so it had frozen to the sheath. It was God's hand!--So the "Black One" knocked me down. Finding myself overpowered, I seized him by the throat with my right hand, and laid the left on his jaws, and called to the boy to run for help. The silly boy jumped on him, and--whack!--went his pocket knife into the bear;--he had a little knife that size,' and Chachak measured with his finger. '"You want to eat my father!" he shouted. The Black One was frightened, and jumped into the bushes. But the boy had hit me in the chest with his knife, and I should have been killed, had it been able to pierce the stag's hide. They could scarcely bring me round again.' 'And you see from that time, when "He," sitting on me, looked into my eyes, my mind has been troubled. I am afraid,' he added quietly, 'very much afraid.'