Uncle Nathan said he could not explain to another how he did it, but
he could usually tell in a few minutes in what direction to look for
the game. His experience had ripened into a kind of intuition or
winged reasoning that was above rules.
He said that most large game, deer, caribou, moose, bear, when started
by the hunter and not much scared, were sure to stop and look back
before disappearing from sight: he usually waited for this last and
best chance to fire. He told us of a huge bear he had seen one morning
while still-hunting foxes in the fields; the bear saw him, and got into
the woods before he could get a good shot. In her course some distance
up the mountain was a bald, open spot, and he felt sure when she
crossed this spot she would pause and look behind her; and sure enough,
like Lot's wife, her curiosity got the better of her; she stopped to
have a final look, and her travels ended there and then.
Uncle Nathan had trapped and shot a great many bears, and some of his
experiences revealed an unusual degree of sagacity in this animal.
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