The trappers had seen a bear near the barns. Cancut, in his previous
visit, had seen a disappearance of bear. No sooner had the birch's
bow touched lightly upon the shore than we seized our respective
weapons,--Iglesias his peaceful and creative sketch-book, I my warlike
and destructive gun,--and dashed up the hill-side.

I made for the barns to catch Bruin napping or lolling in the old hay.
I entertain a _vendetta_ toward the ursine family. I had a _duello_,
pistol against claw, with one of them in the mountains of Oregon,
and have nothing to show to point the moral and adorn the tale. My
antagonist of that hand-to-hand fight received two shots, and then
dodged into cover and was lost in the twilight. Soon or late in my life,
I hoped that I should avenge this evasion. Ripogenus would, perhaps,
give what the Nachchese Pass had taken away.

Vain hope! I was not to be an ursicide. I begin to fear that I shall
slay no other than my proper personal bearishness. I did my duty for
another result at Ripogenus. I bolted audaciously into every barn. I
made incursions into the woods around. I found the mark of the beast,
not the beast. He had not long ago decamped, and was now, perhaps,
sucking the meditative paw hard-by in an arbor of his bear-garden.

After a vain hunt, I gave up Beast and turned to Beauty. I looked about
me, seeing much.

Foremost I saw a fellow-man, my comrade, fondled by breeze and
brightness, and whispered to by all sweet sounds. I saw Iglesias below
me, on the slope, sketching. He was preserving the scene at its _bel
momento_. I repented more bitterly of my momentary falseness to Beauty
while I saw him so constant.