Once Simmo caught a bear by the hind leg in a steel trap.  It was a young bear, a two-year-old; and Simmo thought to save his precious powder by killing it with a club.  He cut a heavy maple stick and, swinging it high above his head, advanced to the trap.  Mooween rose to his hind legs, and looked him steadily in the eye, like the trained boxer that he is.  Down came the club with a sweep to have felled an ox.  There was a flash from Mooween’s paw; the club spun away into the woods; and Simmo just escaped a fearful return blow by dropping to the ground and rolling out of reach, leaving his cap in Mooween’s claws.  A wink later, and his scalp would have hung there instead.

In the mating season, when three or four bears often roam the woods together in fighting humor, Mooween uses a curious kind of challenge.  Rising on his hind legs against a big fir or spruce, he tears the bark with his claws as high as he can reach on either side.  Then placing his back against the trunk, he turns his head and bites into the tree with his long canine teeth, tearing out a mouthful of the wood.  That is to let all rivals know just how big a bear he is.

The next bear that comes along, seeking perhaps to win the mate of his rival and following her trail, sees the challenge and measures his height and reach in the same way, against the same tree.  If he can bite as high, or higher, he keeps on, and a terrible fight is sure to follow.  But if, with his best endeavors, his marks fall short of the deep scars above, he prudently withdraws, and leaves it to a bigger bear to risk an encounter.

In the wilderness one occasionally finds a tree on which three or four bears have thus left their challenge.  Sometimes all the bears in a neighborhood seem to have left their records in the same place.  I remember well one such tree, a big fir, by a lonely little beaver pond, where the separate challenges had become indistinguishable on the torn bark.  The freshest marks here were those of a long-limbed old ranger—­a monster he must have been—­with a clear reach of a foot above his nearest rival.  Evidently no other bear had cared to try after such a record.

Once, in the mating season, I discovered quite by accident that Mooween can be called, like a hawk or a moose, or indeed any other wild creature, if one but knows how.  It was in New Brunswick, where I was camped on a wild forest river.  At midnight I was back at a little opening in the woods, watching some hares at play in the bright moonlight.  When they had run away, I called a wood-mouse out from his den under a stump; and then a big brown owl from across the river—­which almost scared the life out of my poor little wood-mouse.  Suddenly a strange cry sounded far back on the mountain.  I listened curiously, then imitated the cry, in the hope of hearing it again and of remembering it; for I had never before heard anything like the sound, and had no idea what creature produced it.  There was no response, however, and I speedily grew interested in the owls; for by this time two or three more were hooting about me, all called in by the first comer.  When they had gone I tried the strange call again.  Instantly it was answered close at hand.  The creature was coming.