He had been eating them by the handful for some time when he
became aware that there was a feaster on the other side of the thicket.
Receiving no reply to his challenge he went to investigate and saw a
brown bear standing on his hind legs and raking the berries off the
twigs with both forepaws, into his mouth. At sight of John he dropped on
all fours and cantered off.
Leaving the bay they cruised along the coast past Cape Cod, and then
steered southwest for the fortieth parallel. Wind and rain came on in
the middle of August, and they were blown toward an inlet which Hudson
decided to be the James. Not knowing how the English governor of
Jamestown might regard an intrusion by a Dutch ship, he turned north
again, and on the twenty-eighth of August entered a large bay and took
soundings. More than once the _Half Moon_, light as she rode, grounded
on sand-banks, and Hudson shook his head in rueful doubt.
"D' you think the straits are here, Dad?" asked John when he had a
chance to speak with his father alone.
"Hardly. This is fresh water. It's the mouth of a river."[3]
"Yes, but might there be an isthmus--or the like?"
"A big river with as strong a current as this would not rise on a
narrow, level strip of land, son. It's bringing down tons of sand to
make these banks we run into.
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