Oowikapun | Page 6

with him and God, Memotas prayed earnestly that this dark
pagan brother might yet come into the light of the blessed Gospel. Then
he kissed him, and they parted, not to meet again for years.
Happy would it have been for Oowikapun if he had responded to
Memotas's entreaties and become a Christian, but the heart is hard and
blinded as well as deceitful, and the devil is cunning. So long, sad years
passed by ere Oowikapun, after trying, as we shall see, other ways to
find peace and soul comfort, humbled himself at the cross, and found
peace in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oowikapun returned to his little lodge, rekindled the fire, and tried to
enter upon his hunting life where he had left off when wounded by the

wolf. He stretched the furs already secured, and then early next
morning visited his traps and spent the rest of the day hunting for deer.
His success was not very great; the fact is, what he had heard and
witnessed during the days of his sojourn in the wigwam of Memotas
had given him so much food for thought that he was not concentrating
his mind on his work in a manner that would bring success. He would
sometimes get into a reverie so absorbing that he would stop in the trail
and strive to think over and over again what he had heard about the
good book and its teachings. Very suddenly one day was he roused out
of one of these reveries. He had gone out to visit some traps which he
had set in a place where he had noticed the tracks of wild cats. While
going along through a dense forest with his gun strapped on his back he
got so lost in thought that his naturally shrewd instincts as a hunter,
sharpened by practice, seemed to have deserted him, and he nearly
stumbled over a huge, old she bear and a couple of young cubs. With a
growl of rage at being thus disturbed the fierce brute rushed at him, and
quickly broke up his reverie and brought him back to a sense of present
danger. To unstrap his gun in time for its successful use was impossible,
but the ever-ready sharp pointed knife was available, and so
Oowikapun, accustomed to such battles, although never before taken so
unexpectedly, sprang back to the nearest tree, which fortunately for him
was close at hand. With a large tree at his back, and a good knife in his
hand, an experienced Indian has the advantage on his side and can
generally kill his savage antagonist without receiving a wound, but if
attacked by a black bear in the open plain, when armed with only a
knife, the hunter very rarely kills his enemy without receiving a fearful
hug or some dangerous wounds.
One of the first bits of advice which an old, experienced Indian hunter
gives to a young hunter, be he white or Indian, who goes out anxious to
kill a bear, or who may possibly while hunting for other game be
attacked by one, is to get his back up against a tree so large that if the
bear is not killed by the bullet of his gun, he may be in the best possible
position to fight him with his knife. It will be no child's play, for a
wounded, maddened bear is a fierce foe. The black bear's method of
trying to kill his human antagonist is quite different from that of the
grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains. The grizzly strikes out with his

dreadful claws with such force that he can tear a man to pieces and is
able to crush down a horse under his powerful blows, but the black bear
tries to get the hunter in his long, strong, armlike fore legs, and then
crush him to death. The hug of a bear, as some hunters know to their
cost, is a warm, close embrace. Some who, by the quick, skillful use of
their knives, or by the prompt arrival of a rescue party, have been
rescued from the almost deathly hug, have told me how their ribs have
been broken and their breastbones almost crushed in by the terrible
embrace. I know of several who have been in such conflict, and
although they managed to escape death by driving their knives into
some vital spot, yet they had suffered so much from broken ribs and
other injuries received, that they were never as strong and vigorous
afterward. But with a good tree at his back, his trusty knife in his hand,
and his brain cool, the advantage is all on the side of the hunter.
Among the many stories told of such conflicts, there is one by a