made them recall to memory the best moments of their lives, their youth; just as the first breath of spring brings memories to an old man of his young love.
The big game hunt was in its third day. Many deer and bison had been killed by the arrows and spears of the boyars. Near the bank of a noisy mountain stream, in a glade deep within the forest, the huntsmen had pitched their tents. Smoke rose high from huge campfires where upon iron racks hung great steaming kettles and where the meat of the game was being turned by the servants as it broiled and baked, to feed Tuhar’s company of guests.
Today, the last day of the hunt was to be devoted to the most important and most dangerous of all, the hunt for bears. At the top of a steeply sloping hill strewn with broken branches and fallen timber and densely forested with sturdy beech and pine trees, separated from the rest of the terrain by deep ravines and gorges, was the ancient breeding ground of the mighty Bruin. There, Maxim Berkut, their mountain guide, assured them could be found the dens of the female bears from which they brought forth their offspring to instill terror into the entire community, on visiting its peaceful pastures.
Although some daring shepherds occasionally killed one or two beasts with their bows and arrows and spears, or managed to lure them into a trap, the number of bears was too great for such infrequent killings to insure the community against their ever-present menace.
It was no wonder that when the new boyar, Tuhar Wolf, announced to the inhabitants of Tukhlia that he was staging a bear hunt and asked them to lend him a guide, they not only sent him their very best young mountaineer, Maxim, son of Zakhar, their most prominent citizen and respected leader, but also a troop of young mountaineer archers, equipped with bows and arrows and javelins to lend assistance to the boyar and his company in the hunt. Tuhar’s plan was to surround the hill-
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