I will not speak for Henderson, but if I could have moved just then I should have taken a header into the lake. When we got our breath after the first shock of surprise, my companion shouted excitedly, "Shoot! Shoot!" He yelled so loud that the bear stopped in surprise, had a good, comfortable look at us, gave what sounded like a grunt of disgust, and then turned tail and quietly trotted off along the trail in the direction we had come from. Directly he had disappeared we unslung our guns and consoled each other by declaring that the reason we had not fired at the bear was not because we were scared, but because we were fascinated by our first sight of a real wild bear. Nevertheless, it was remarkable how quickly and with what touching unanimity we climbed up that dead tree in the middle of the flat, in case Bruin should take it into his head to return. Seated in its branches we at least felt more comfortable, until Henderson suddenly remembered that bears could also climb. To make matters worse for us, it was now getting late in the afternoon, and the sun had already dipped behind the mountains. The thought of sitting up in that tree all night was no joke; but, still, we considered it better than going back through the woods, with thick undergrowth on both sides of the trail, in which countless bears could lie in wait for us. [Illustration: MR. A. WRIGHT, ONE OF THE "GREENHORNS" WHO HERE RELATES HIS AMUSING ENCOUNTER WITH A BEAR. _From a Photograph._ ] Presently Henderson suggested lighting a fire. "All right," I replied. "You get down and collect the sticks; I'll keep watch up here." But this brilliant suggestion found no favour with my companion. "No," he said; "let's toss for it." So we did, and I won. Henderson got down--not so quickly as he got up, however--and began to look round for sticks, circling warily round and round the tree at arm's length. He did this two or three times, and then suddenly he shouted out loudly, "There are no sticks down here." The yell so scared me that I lost my balance and toppled down off my perch, landing with a crash on the ground. When I picked myself up, fortunately unhurt, Henderson was half-way up the tree, and I soon followed suit. Neither of us had the pluck to descend again, so all night we sat perched up in the tree, afraid to sleep lest we should fall, and shaking with cold, fear, and hunger. The night was terribly dark, and the stillness all around us was something that could almost be felt. The man who says he never knew fear when spending his first night in the primeval forest can have no respect for the truth. It is not excitement or nervousness, but absolute fear of the unknown, and I know it from experience, for Henderson and myself killed many a bear and spent many a night in the forest after that first one. But we never experienced the same sensation again.