A couple of hares, like white shadows in their spotless winter coats, shot from covert to covert across the open ground.
Then suddenly the keeper gave a little grunt and held up his hand, listening with parted lips and eager eyes.

There was a distinct sound of breaking branches and crackling underwood.
They could see Paul cautiously rise from his knees to a crouching attitude.

They followed the direction of his gaze, and before them the monarch of these forests stood in clumsy might.

A bear had shambled to the edge of the clearing and was standing upright, growling and grumbling to himself, his great paws waving from side to side, his shaggy head thrust forward with a recurring jerk singularly suggestive of a dandy with an uncomfortable collar.

These bears of Northern Russia have not the reputation of being very fierce unless they are aroused from their winter quarters, when their wrath knows no bounds and their courage recognizes no danger.