Suddenly he comes over the edge of a cut bank,
or round the sharp spur of a mountain or the shoulder of a cliff
which walls in a ravine, or else the indistinct game trail he has been
following through the great trees twists sharply to one side to avoid
a rock or a mass of down timber, and behold he surprises old Ephraim
digging for roots, or munching berries, or slouching along the path,
or perhaps rising suddenly from the lush, rank plants amid which he has
been lying. Or it may be that the bear will be spied afar rooting in an
open glade or on a bare hill-side.
In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to find some favorite
feeding-ground, where there are many roots or berry-bearing bushes, or
else to lure the grisly to a carcass. This last method of "baiting" for
bears is under ordinary circumstances the only way which affords even a
moderately fair chance of killing them. They are very cunning, with the
sharpest of noses, and where they have had experience of hunters they
dwell only in cover where it is almost impossible for the best of
still-hunters to approach them.
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