That killed the fierce imagination bear of childhood days deader than any bullet could have done, and convinced me that Mooween is at heart a timid creature.  Still, this was a young bear, as was also one other upon whom I tried the same experiment, with the same result.  Had he been older and bigger, it might have been different.  In that case I have found that a good rule is to go your own way unobtrusively, leaving Mooween to his devices.  All animals, whether wild or domestic, respect a man who neither fears nor disturbs them.

Mooween’s eyes are his weak point.  They are close together, and seem to focus on the ground a few feet in front of his nose.  At twenty yards to leeward he can never tell you from a stump or a caribou, should you chance to be standing still.

If fortunate enough to find the ridge where he sleeps away the long summer days, one is almost sure to get a glimpse of him by watching on the lake below.  It is necessary only to sit perfectly still in your canoe among the water-grasses near shore.  When near a lake, a bear will almost invariably come down about noontime to sniff carefully all about, and lap the water, and perhaps find a dead fish before going back for his afternoon sleep.

Four or five times I have sat thus in my canoe while Mooween passed close by, and never suspected my presence till a chirp drew his attention.  It is curious at such times, when there is no wind to bring the scent to his keen nose, to see him turn his head to one side, and wrinkle his forehead in the vain endeavor to make out the curious object there in the grass.  At last he rises on his hind legs, and stares long and intently.  It seems as if he must recognize you, with his nose pointing straight at you, his eyes looking straight into yours.  But he drops on all fours again, and glides silently into the thick bushes that fringe the shore.

Don’t stir now, nor make the least sound.  He is in there, just out of sight, sitting on his haunches, using nose and ears to catch your slightest message.

Ten minutes pass by in intense silence.  Down on the shore, fifty yards below, a slight swaying of the bilberry bushes catches your eye.  That surely is not the bear!  There has not been a sound since he disappeared.  A squirrel could hardly creep through that underbrush without noise enough to tell where he was.  But the bushes sway again, and Mooween reappears suddenly for another long look at the suspicious object.  Then he turns and plods his way along shore, rolling his head from side to side as if completely mystified.

Now swing your canoe well out into the lake, and head him off on the point, a quarter of a mile below.  Hold the canoe quiet just outside the lily pads by grasping a few tough stems, and sit low.  This time the big object catches Mooween’s eye as he rounds the point; and you have only to sit still to see him go through the same maneuvers with greater mystification than before.