Nodding his assent, and starting off in a course diverging to the right of the one he perceived his companion to be taking, Claud slowly, and as he best could, made his way forward, sometimes crawling under, and sometimes clambering over the tangled masses of fallen trees, which, with a thick upshooting second growth, lay piled and crossed in all conceivable shapes and directions before him. After proceeding in this manner thirty or forty rods, he paused, for the third or fourth time, to look and listen; but lastly quite as much for his companion as for game, for, with all his powers, he could detect no sound indicating that the latter could be anywhere in the vicinity. While thus engaged, he heard a small, shrill, plaintive sort of cry, as of a little child, coming from somewhere above him; when, casting up his eyes, he beheld a large raccoon sidling round a limb, and seemingly winking and nodding down towards him. With the suppressed exclamation of “Far better than nothing,” he brought his piece to his face and fired; when the glimpse of a straight-falling body, and the heavy thump on the ground that followed, told him that the object of his aim was a “_dead coon_.” But his half-uttered shout of exultation was cut short by the startling report of a rifle, a little distance to the rear, on his left. And the next moment a huge old bear, followed by a smaller one, came smashing and tearing through the brush and tree-tops directly towards him. And with such headlong speed did the frightened brutes advance upon him, that he had scarce time to draw his clubbed rifle before the old one had broke into the little open space where he stood, and thrown herself on her haunches, in an attitude of angry defiance. Recoiling a step in the only way he could move, and expecting the next moment to find himself within the fatal grasp of the bear, if he did not disable her, Claud aimed and struck with all his might a blow at her head. But, before the swiftly-descending implement reached its mark, it was struck by the fending paw of the enraged brute, with a force that sent its tightly-grasping owner spinning and floundering into the entangled brushwood, till he landed prostrate on the ground. And, ere he had time to turn himself, the desperate animal had rushed and trampled over him, and disappeared through a breach effected in one of the treetops that had hemmed him in and prevented his retreat from such a doubtful, hand-to-hand encounter. As the discomfited young huntsman was rising to his feet, his eyes fell upon Phillips, hurrying forward, with looks of lively concern; which, however, as he leaped into the small open space comprising the battle-ground, and saw how matters stood, at first gave place to a ludicrous smile, and then to a merry peal of laughter.