66 The Grizzly Bear 



getting up, looked the ground over to see what the chances 

 were of the bear's getting back into the canon in case I 

 failed to drop him. And down there, in the canon I had 

 watched so long and so vainly, stood the largest bear it 

 had ever been my good fortune to set eyes on. I began to 

 think the woods were full of them, and backing silently into 

 one of the small ravines, I worked down the hill toward 

 the big fellow. And as I got a better view of him I knew 

 what had made those tracks. I had thought nothing about 

 the size of the first bear. I had been disappointed so 

 often that anything went. But now that I had set my eyes 

 on this big one I thought him entitled to precedence. 



Yet I wanted both, and I thought I saw my way to get- 

 ting them. The first bear seemed to have struck a bo- 

 nanza berry patch and was moving slowly, or not at all. 

 The big fellow, on the other hand, was down where the 

 bushes were pretty well stripped and seemed to be work- 

 ing uphill fairly fast. I therefore dropped out of sight, 

 wormed my way downhill a bit farther, waited till the two 

 bears were about a hundred yards apart, and then crept 

 to the top of a slight ridge and found myself some forty 

 yards from the big one and sixty from the other. 



I figured on killing the large bear at the first shot and 

 then turning on the other before he had time to take in 

 the situation; and I relied on the second bear's standing 

 up to take a look before making for the canon, and thereby 

 giving me the few seconds that I would need. 



By this time I had got rid of my old .44 repeater, 

 and was shooting a single-shot .45-100 Winchester that 

 weighed twelve pounds. I had selected this gun because 

 I could always depend on it. I used the full charge of 



