“The next moment the eagerly-pursuing painter came rushing down the bank to the water, where the bear had entered it; when, after a hesitating pause, he gave an angry yell, and, in two prodigious bounds, landed on the edge of the island. Having raised my rifle for a helping shot, if needed, I awaited, with beating heart and eyes wide open, the coming encounter. With eyes shooting fire, the painter hastily fixed his feet, and, with a long leap, came down on his intrenched opponent. A cloud of dust instantly enveloped the combatants, but through it I could see the ineffectual passes of the painter at the bear’s head, and the rapid play of the bear’s hind paws under the painter’s belly. This bout between them, however, was of but short continuance, and terminated by the painter, which now leaped suddenly aside, and stood for a moment eyeing his opponent askance, as if he had found in those rending hind-claws already much more than he had bargained for. But, quickly rousing himself, he prepared for the final conflict; and, backing to the water’s edge, he gave one short bound forward, and, leaping ten feet into the air, came down again, with a wild screech, on his still unmoved antagonist. “This time, so much more furiously flew up the dust and sand from the spot, that I could see nothing; but the mingling growls and yells of the desperately-grappling brutes were so terrific as to make the hair stand up on my head. Presently, however, I could perceive that the cries of the assailant, which had been becoming less and less fierce, were now turning into howls of pain; and, the next moment, I saw him, rent and bloody, with his entrails out and dragging on the ground behind him, making off till he reached the water on the opposite side of the island, when he staggered through the current, feebly crawled up the bank, and disappeared in the woods, where he must have died miserably within the hour. “I went home a grateful man; leaving the bear, that had done me such good service, to depart in peace, as I saw him doing before I left, apparently little injured from the conflict.” CHAPTER XIV. “Ours the wild life the forest still to range, From toil to rest, and joy in every change.”