Isaac (“Ike”) McCaslin is ten years old. He is at a hunting camp with his dad; Major de Spain, a family friend; old General Compson; and a few others. It is November. Ike knows he has inherited his family’s chase of an allegedly immortal bear, Big Ben.   He remembers growing up watching the men leave to go hunting in a wagon. The crew included “his father and Tennie’s Jim, the Negro, and Sam Fathers, the Indian, son of a slave woman and a Chickasaw chief (71).” Ike always thought the crew was going to the Bottom to hunt the legendary bear.   At the camp, Ike hears dogs. He learns how to fire a gun from Sam. They hear dogs barking but no animal approaches. They call for Old Ben. Sam explains that Old Ben will taunt campers. He will walk by the campsite to see if there are any hunters who can shoot well enough and dogs who can chase well enough to get him.   One afternoon, Sam takes Ike out riding for hours. They hear a sound and stop. They see claw marks on a rotten log. Ike realizes that this bear must have existed in the dreams of his father and the hunting crew. He believes they too knew the bear was mortal and the reason they did not kill it was that they had no actual desire to.   The next morning he and Sam ride out into the woods again. Sam leaves Ike in a spot with a gun. He waits in the stand and thinks about the history of people hunting in these woods. He knew the bear was looking at him. He sensed it. He did not cock his gone. Then he knew it was gone.   Sam returns with an injured dog. Ike tells him that he did not see the bear. Sam says that haven’t got the right dog to kill him yet.   Ike feels like he needs to see the bear.   It is June and Ike is eleven. The crew is back in the camp. Ike would leave camp early before breakfast to look for the bear. Everyone thinks he is hunting squirrels. He had his own gun now, and a compass.   Sam talks to Ike and tells him he is not looking right yet. Sam tells him it has to do with the gun and that while Ike may be scared, he ought not to be afraid. Ike thinks about this.   The next morning he leaves without his gun, but he has his compass. He hunts without a gun, not killing anything but tracking animals down. He is becoming a skilled woodsman. Nine hours later he abandons his compass, watch, and stick. He ventures on into the bayou. He is lost. He finds himself back at the log with the claw print. He sees the bear. Then it disappeared.   He thought it will be next fall, but it wasn’t. Ike is now fourteen. He has killed his first buck; the next year he kills his first bear. He is now quite competent in the woods. Though he is not able to hunt the old bear. He feels like the old bear is his new challenge, but he never saw it.     He eventually sees the bear. He sees the bear again once when he forgets to look for it. It moved exceptionally fast and Ike now realizes why Sam said you needed to have the right dog for the hunt. When he returned in April, he brought a brave dog not much bigger than a rat.   He and Sam Fathers and the dogs went out one morning to ambush the bear. They see the bear and release the dog. The bear grew taller. The little dog kept chasing it with the hounds following suit. Ike realizes that his dog is not stopping so he chases after the dog to save it. He feels the bear over him. The bear disappears.   Sam asks why Ike did not shoot the bear. Ike tells Sam the same thing. Later, after telling the story to his father, they ask Ike why he did not shoot despite having a gun in his hand. Ike did not answer. They were in their plantation office surrounded by hunting trophies and pelts of dead animals.   Ike could hear the wilderness. He thinks of the morals and grit that hunters have. His father reads him a text from a book talking about Truth. Ike was confused. He felt that there was an old bear who was pride and fierce, proud of his freedom and liberty. Ike thinks of Sam, the child of an enslaved woman and an Indian who was humble through suffering and prideful through endurance as an Indian. He thinks of how he was a young boy who wishes to learn to be humble, prideful, and skillful. He feels he became skillful so fast that he will never be good because he did not learn humility and pride. He thinks of the little dog who is brave despite lacking in so many ways. He thinks about how after all this time it is simple. He tracked this bear for four years and then could not shoot it.   His father tells him about courage, honor, pride, pity, and a love of justice and liberty. He asks Ike if he sees it now. He thinks of Sam, Old Ben, Nip, and himself. He answers that he does.