The Bear, Pages 185 - 218 Summary

As the story opens, the main character, an unnamed boy, is sixteen. He has been hunting for six years. He recalls being seven years old, desperate to accompany the men, forced to wait patiently until he is ten. His first hunting trip is everything he imagined it to be. He expects nothing; he does not even dare to hope that he will see the hunting dogs chase anything. The men do not wind up catching anything—they rarely do—but there is a sighting of the bear named Old Ben. Old Ben is almost legendary in the woods. He has proven to be impossible to take down; some even claim that he is not injured even when shot at point blank. There is a Old Ben sighting on the boy's first trip, but he does...