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Updated: June 1, 2025
In agony he cried out, calling Pouchskin by name. He was repeating his despairing invocation, when all at once a loud laugh echoed in his ears, uttered close behind him. In the laughter he recognised the voice of Ivan. Alexis suddenly leaped to his feet, wondering what on earth could be the cause of this ill-timed merriment.
Alexis and Ivan, as they started back, simultaneously screamed out a shout of warning to Pouchskin. Both, almost at the same instant, raised their guns, and fired into the buttocks of the bear. Pouchskin had heard their cries, but not the preliminary "sniff" which the animal had uttered: he had been too eager in listening inside of the cave, to hear aught that was passing without.
While Pouchskin was spreading out the comestibles, and Alexis engaged in noting down in his journal the events of the day, Ivan attracted by a beautiful bird had taken up his fowling-piece, and followed the bird through the jungle in hopes of getting a shot at it. We go along with Ivan, for it was he who started the "mountebank" bear, that came near mounting him on the moment of their meeting it.
Our hunters, assured that both bears were dead, now descended from their respective perches; but the sight of Pouchskin, with one leg in stocking, and the other buried up to the thigh in a great horse-skin boot, would have been too much for the gravity of a judge, and his young masters were once more merry at his expense.
A sapling was now obtained, and inserted into the cavity at first with caution, but after a time it was punched in with all the force that Pouchskin could put into his arm. He could feel the bear quite distinctly; but poke the animal as he might, it would not stir.
Perhaps had Pouchskin not indulged so freely in the seducing Malaga tipple, he might have avoided a very perilous adventure which befell him almost on the instant, and which we shall now relate. Our travellers, after exchanging some further civilities with the muleteers, had once more mounted, and were about proceeding on their way.
To go afoot in pursuit of such game as grizzly bears was the height of indiscretion; and the traders had told them so; but they made light of what they had been told, for two reasons, first, because it was absolutely necessary they should kill a grizzly and strip him of his skin; and secondly, because our young hunters, Pouchskin as well, had but a very indefinite idea of the risk they were running.
It was, perhaps, just as well for him: since it was the means of keeping him clear of a scrape into which both of the young hunters chanced to fall very soon after; and which, perhaps, had Pouchskin been with them, might have ended worse than it did: since it could not have ended much better.
Now "nalle" is the nickname of the bear throughout the Scandinavian countries, and our Russian hunters knew this well enough; but that a bear could be inside the little hole, to which their guide had pointed, appeared utterly incredible, and Ivan and Alexis burst into a loud laugh, while Pouchskin was rather inclined to show a little anger about the matter.
Even Pouchskin required repose, after the rough handling he had received at the mouths of the mules; and he was now quite as ready as his young masters to wrap himself up in his ample grenadier great-coat, and surrender himself into the arms of the Pyrenean Morpheus.
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