Usually, if no assistance
is at hand, such a man is doomed; although if he pretends to be dead,
and has the nerve to lie quiet under very rough treatment, it is just
possible that the bear may leave him alive, perhaps after half burying
what it believes to be the body. In a very few exceptional instances men
of extraordinary prowess with the knife have succeeded in beating off
a bear, and even in mortally wounding it, but in most cases a
single-handed struggle, at close quarters, with a grisly bent on
mischief, means death.
Occasionally the bear, although vicious, is also frightened, and passes
on after giving one or two bites; and frequently a man who is knocked
down is rescued by his friends before he is killed, the big beast mayhap
using his weapons with clumsiness. So a bear may kill a foe with a
single blow of its mighty fore-arm, either crushing in the head or
chest by sheer force of sinew, or else tearing open the body with its
formidable claws; and so on the other hand he may, and often does,
merely disfigure or maim the foe by a hurried stroke.
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