APPROACHING GAME
But to return to the land of peace. Of course, in attempting to deceive game, one must always guard against approaching down wind, for most animals grow more frantic over the scent than they do over the sight of man. Later on, when I went hunting with Oo-koo-hoo, he used to make me laugh, for at one moment he would be a jolly old Indian gentleman, and just as likely as not the next instant he would be posing as a rotten pine stump that had been violently overturned, and now resembled an object against which a bear might like to rub his back and scratch himself.
Often have I proved the value of the old hunter's methods, and I could recite not a few instances of how easy it is to deceive either birds or animals; but I shall mention only one, which happened on the borderline of Alaska. I was running through a grove of heavy timber, where the moss was so deep that my tread made no sound, when suddenly rounding a large boulder, I came upon a black bear less than fourteen paces away. It was sitting upon its haunches, directly in the footpath I was following. As good luck would have it, I saw him first, and for the fun of it, I instantly became an old gray stump—or tried to look like one. Presently the bear's head swung round, and at first he seemed a bit uneasy over the fact that he had not seen that stump before. It appeared to puzzle him, for he even twisted about to get a better view; but after watching me for about five minutes he contentedly turned his head away. A few minutes later, however, he looked again, and becoming reassured, yawned deliberately in my face. But by that time, being troubled with a kink in my back, I had to straighten up. Then, strange to say, as I walked quietly and slowly round him to gain the path ahead, the brute did not even get up off his haunches—but such behaviour on the part of a bear rarely happens.
Perhaps you wonder why I didn't shoot the brute. I never carry a gun. For when one is provided with food, one can carry no more useless thing than a gun; so far as protection is concerned, there is no more need to carry a gun in the north woods, than to carry a gun down Broadway; in fact, the wolves of Broadway—especially those of the female species—are much more dangerous to man than the wolves of the Great Northern Forest.