With the club and quiver on my back, and the bow in hand, I forced my way through a stubborn growth, coming presently upon the trail of some jungle creature which had apparently broken this path for the purpose of drinking at the lake. I had gone no more than several strides in this beaten track when I nearly stepped upon a hooded snake. Though I jumped back quickly and made ready with speed to hit the reptile with my club, it glided away before I could fetch it a blow, escaping into a maze where I own I dared not follow. Willing enough to let the creature alone, if it would do the same by me, I went on my way. Then occurred the thought, if only I could have killed it and poisoned my arrows, how much better I should be armed for the bear. Going back I thumped about for several minutes, looking for the venomous serpent, yet dreading to see it. There was little danger of seeing that particular snake again, so I once more resumed my journey. Having the venom thought in mind, I decided to search for a serpent deliberately, for the sake of its poison. Snake hunting is not in my line. I kept an eye open and peered about in likely places but the reptiles I saw were not the venomous kind and they were often of the constricting variety, so that they and I had nothing in common. I passed them by frequently, in haste to be about my business. The whole morning was passed in this half-hearted search for venom. In the early afternoon, having worked through a wide belt of trees, I issued forth in the largest clearing I had seen since leaving the boat. It was hardly more than fifty feet wide by one hundred long, slightly swampish under foot and overrun with vines, gigantic flowering plants and the rankest of grass. At the edge of this place I had the luck to see the tail end of what I thought to be a venomous snake. The reptile was nearly safe from harm beneath a mass of interlocking creepers, yet I tried to get at him and became so absorbed while poking about the brush that I clean forgot my more important quest. In the midst of this dallying about, I left my position to run around to the further side of the tangle, and found myself confronted by the creature of all creatures which I regarded as particularly mine—a bear as black as soot. This animal was nosing about the trunk of a tree. He was only five or six long strides away, paying no tribute of attention whatsoever to me or my prowess. That he had seen me and heard me I could not possibly doubt. I knew at once that the veneration in which he was held by the Links grew out of this remarkable inoffensiveness and the grave, knowing air with which the creature kept about its own concerns. I longed for a well-poisoned arrow, but the time being inopportune for regrets, I silently fitted my choicest shaft on the bow-string and stepped aside for a better chance to shoot.