When he was at a point about a hundred yards away he fancied that he heard a sound in a thicket a considerable distance ahead.

Promptly taking shelter behind a large tree, he used both eyes and ears, watching the thicket closely, and listening for any other sound that might come.
He heard nothing else but his keen eyes noted a bush swaying directly into the teeth of the wind, a movement that could not occur unless something alive in the thicket caused it.

He slid his rifle forward and still watched.

Now the bush shook violently, and an awkward black figure, shooting out, ran across the open.

It was only a bear, and he was about to resume his circling walk, but second thought told him that the bear was running as if he ran away from an object of which he was afraid, and there was nothing in the northern forests except human beings to scare a bear.
He settled back in his shelter and resumed his watch in the thicket, leaving the bear to run where he pleased, which he did, disappearing with a snort in another thicket.