Thanks for your comments last week.  Here’s the continuation from The Bear and The Man.  Remember to leave comments this week to let me know what Reggie should do.

Reggie decides the farther away from that bear the better.  He’ll take his chances one night in the woods.  Besides what’s the chance of running into another bear on the same day.  Reggie takes his time paddling across the lake to get to the opposite end.  He navigates up a small stream and carefully brings his canoe ashore making sure not to drag it over any large rocks.  Immediately Reggie searched for some sort of shelter or material for a shelter and wood for a fire. Using the rope he had in the canoe Reggie was able to construct a makeshift shelter with small logs and tree branches.  It wasn’t great, but it should give him some protection from the elements.

It was the beginning of fall, many of the trees had turned colour and started dropping their leaves.  The dried leaves would be perfect for catching an ember when Reggie tried to start a fire.  Reggie dug out a little pit with his bailing bucket, crumbled up a bunch of dried leaves and rigged up a wood spinning tool that would create enough friction between two pieces of wood to create a fire.  It took him a while, but Reggie was able to do it and in no time he had a fire big enough to keep him warm for the night.

Reggie made one last sweep of the area looking for any tracks or signs of bears in the area.  Content that there weren’t any he laid down under his shelter by the fire and rested his head on a life jacket.  Reggie was very hungry, but that was the least of his concerns knowing that he had to make it through the rest of tonight and then head back to the cottage to see if the bear was gone.  Reggie closed his eyes and fell asleep.

It felt like he had been asleep for hours, but it was still dark and Reggie was woken by the sound of shotguns being fired and men yelling.  Reggie rubbed his eyes and cleared his head.  What could these guys be hunting?  The bear hunt was canceled a couple of years ago and there is no hunting for deer in this area.  He peered around one of the makeshift walls of the shelter to see beams of light coming through the bushes.  The men were definitely moving in his direction, but were still far off.  Reggie could hear something quickly moving through the bushes and coming right at him.  He figured it was the animal the men were hunting.  It came bolting through the bushes right in front of Reggie and shouted “RUN!”  The animal was a man!  The fleeing stranger said no more and headed straight for the lake.

Reggie was frozen; he didn’t know what to do.

Should Reggie:

1. Run, like the man said.
2. Call out to the hunters to identify himself

Wow.. I just laughed my ass off. I was looking at my site today and noticed a google adsense ad that had me rolling on the floor.

The adsense ad appeared on my Story Telling Sunday – The Bear and the Man post. I know google is supposed to be great a picking appropriate ads for your content, but this was a little too wierd.

If you’re lucky you might still see the ad there. If it’s not there anymore, I took a screen cap of it.

Here it is:

Too funny… at least that’s what I thought 🙂

I’ve been asked a number of times “so what happens to the man and the bear?” but there weren’t any comments left so I will choose the direction of the story this time. If you are interested in the story leave a comment with your vote as to how it should continue. Now back to the man and the bear.

Reggie knew that playing dead was for fools and that if he was going to die it wouldn’t be by pretending to already be dead. He decided to make a run for it! The water wasn’t that far away and he figured if he could just make it to the lake the bear would lose interest and go back for the honey. Reggie bolted for the doc finding a path that he figured would be tough for the bear to follow, but to his surprise the bear was right behind him. Reggie could hear the pounding footsteps of the bear on the leaf covered ground. The heavy breathing and somewhat snarling sounds of the bear seemed to be right in Reggie’s ears. Reggie was waiting for the inevitable hit that would send him flying and rip open his back. But there it was…the dock! The sound of Reggie’s shoes hitting the pressure treated would was like the sound of hitting a homerun to Reggie. He took two steps and then dove head first into the water. Then silence. There was no more growling sounds, no more heavy breathing, but the fear had not left Reggie. He waited under the water to hear the deep giant plunge of the bear coming after him in the water, but there was nothing. Reggie swam a little farther out into the lake before coming to the surface. When he did come up for air he could see the bear had turned around and headed back to the cottage for some unguarded food just as Reggie had hoped for.

Reggie figured it wouldn’t be safe to go back to land, but he should be able to untie his canoe from the dock and get away from there for a while. He did just that and then realized that he had no food, no water, and not even a Swedish Firesteel flint stick to start a fire. The sun was going down already and Reggie was far from anywhere. He wondered if it was best to try and sneak back to his Jeep and find help in town or just camp out the night on the other side of the lake. He didn’t really feel safe being out in the open over night given that he knew bears were on the prowl for food, but how could he know if the bear was really gone when he comes back to the cottage tomorrow. Reggie sat in his canoe wondering what to do.

What should Reggie do?

1. Go back to the cottage for the Jeep
2. Stay out in the woods all night unprotected