A bush swayed slightly below where he had disappeared.  I was watching it closely when some sudden warning—­I know not what, for I did not hear but only felt it—­made me turn my head quickly.  There, not six feet away, a huge head and shoulders were thrust out of the bushes on the bank, and a pair of gleaming eyes were peering intently down upon me in the grass.  He had been watching me at arm’s length probably two or three minutes.  Had a muscle moved in all that time, I have no doubt that he would have sprung upon me.  As it was, who can say what was passing behind that curious, half-puzzled, half-savage gleam in his eyes?

[Illustration]

He drew quickly back as a sudden movement on my part threw the rifle into position.  A few minutes later I heard the snap of a rotten twig some distance away.  Not another sound told of his presence till he broke out onto the shore, fifty yards above, and went steadily on his way up the lake.

* * * * *

Mooween is something of a humorist in his own way.  When not hungry he will go out of his way to frighten a bullfrog away from his sun-bath on the shore, for no other purpose, evidently, than just to see him jump.  Watching him thus amusing himself one afternoon, I was immensely entertained by seeing him turn his head to one side, and wrinkle his eyebrows, as each successive frog said ke’dunk, and went splashing away over the lily pads.

A pair of cubs are playful as young foxes, while their extreme awkwardness makes them a dozen times more comical.  Simmo, my Indian guide, tells me that the cubs will sometimes run away and hide when they hear the mother bear returning.  No amount of coaxing or of anxious fear on her part will bring them back, till she searches diligently to find them.

Once only have I had opportunity to see the young at play.  There were two of them, nearly full-grown, with the mother.  The most curious thing was to see them stand up on their hind legs and cuff each other soundly, striking and warding like trained boxers.  Then they would lock arms and wrestle desperately till one was thrown, when the other promptly seized him by throat or paw, and pretended to growl frightfully.

They were well fed, evidently, and full of good spirits as two boys.  But the mother was cross and out of sorts.  She kept moving about uneasily, as if the rough play irritated her nerves.  Occasionally, as she sat for a moment with hind legs stretched out flat and fore paws planted between them, one of the cubs would approach and attempt some monkey play.  A sound cuff on the ear invariably sent him whimpering back to his companion, who looked droll enough the while, sitting with his tongue out and his head wagging humorously as he watched the experiment.  It was getting toward the time of year when she would mate again, and send them off into the world to shift for themselves.  And this was perhaps their first hard discipline.