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Updated: June 4, 2025
Then he bounded back some eight or ten paces, and waited, while the bear slid abruptly to the ground with a flat grunt of fury. Sam Coxen, twisting with silent laughter, nearly fell out of his fir-tree. The bear had now no room left for any remembrance of the man. He was in a perfect ecstasy of rage at the insolence of the buck, and rushed upon him like a cyclone.
But there below was the buck, keeping an eye of alert interest on both bear and man. Coxen had no mind to face those keen antlers and trampling hoofs. He preferred to stay where he was and hope for some unexpected intervention of fate. Like most backwoodsmen, he had a dry sense of the ridiculous, and the gravity of his situation could not quite blind him to the humour of it.
Being no sportsman, Coxen did not even take the trouble to change the old percussion-cap, which had been on the tube for six months. It was enough for him that the weapon was loaded. Down the other slope of the hill, where the buck could not see him, Coxen hurried at a run, and gained the cover of the thick woods.
He began to forget his indignation and think only of the prospect of bagging the game so easily do the primeval instincts spring to life in a man's brain. Presently, when within about a hundred yards of the place where he hoped to get a fair shot, Coxen redoubled his caution. He went crouching, keeping behind the densest cover.
Like most backwoods farmers, Sam Coxen had been wont to look with large scorn on such petty interests as gardening; but a county show down at the Settlement had converted him, and now his cabbage patch was the chief object of his solicitude. He had proud dreams of prizes to be won at the next show now not three weeks ahead.
Growling angrily, he scrambled back to the main trunk, down which he began to lower himself, tail foremost. From the business-like alacrity of the bear's movements, Coxen realized that his respite was to be only temporary. He was not more than twelve feet from the ground, and could easily have made his escape while the bear was descending the other tree.
Very angry, Coxen yelled again with all the power of healthy lungs, and waved his arms wildly over his head. But the vaunted authority of the human voice seemed in some inexplicable way to miss a connexion with the buck's consciousness. The waving of those angry arms, however, made an impression upon him.
About halfway up the tree a long branch thrust itself forth till it fairly overhung a thick young spruce. Out along this branch Coxen worked his way carefully. By the time the bear had climbed to one end of the branch, Coxen had reached the other. Here he paused, dreading to let himself drop.
Before they were out of sight Sam Coxen slid down from his tree and made all haste over the fence. In the open field he felt more at ease, knowing he could outrun the bear, in case of need. But he stopped long enough to pick up the gun.
Sam Coxen dropped the reins, sprang from the wagon, and rushed to the bars which led from the yard to the back field; and the horses for the sake of his dignity he always drove the pair when he went into the Settlement fell to cropping the short, fine grass that grew behind the well. In spite of having grown up in the backwoods, Sam was lacking in backwoods lore.
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