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4 curiousity, the exposed hand of the hunter which still grasps one leg of the unfortunate rabbit. Ish-pau-bi-kau instinctively closed his eyes, and feigned the death which he had every reason to believe would soon be his portion. Meanwhile the bear was making further researches; he soon removed all the grass with which Ish-pau-bi-kau had covered himself, and placing one of his huge paws under the hunter’s body, he tossed him out of the trench with as much ease as he had jerked the rabbit from his hand. Ish-pau-bi-kau lay in the same position in which he fell, he never moved a muscle, and whilst the bear was smelling his mouth and nose, to see if he breathed, and was tossing him about from side to side, he counterfeited death so perfectly, that the bear was almost convinced he beheld before him nothing but a lifeless carcass. Nevertheless he was not entirely convinced, so, walking off some thirty or forty paces he concealed himself behind a group of the large gopher hills which are so common on the western prairies. From this position he would reconnoitre every few moments the body of the Indian which still lay in the same position in which it has fallen last, as motionless as through life had been extinct for a century. Nevertheless Ish-pau-bi-kau had raised his eyelids sufficiently to enable him to observe the motions of the bear; he could see the head of the bear appearing at short intervals from behind the gopher hill, and after taking a short observation it would be again withdrawn. He observed that the intervals between these motions of the bear’s head, gradually increased in length, and once when at least fifteen minutes had elapsed without the head appearing. And now Ish-pau-bi-kau determined to make an effort The Ojibways believe that the grisly bear will not defile himself by feasting on, or even mutilating a dead body; hence the reason why the bear we are writing of, is so anxious to ascertain whether the hunter is alive or not. This belief was common to some of the Nations of antiquity; every one is familiar with the fable of Esop,”The two

travellers and the Bear,” where one of the travellers escaped by feigning death.