74 The Grizzly Bear 



to escape. There was room for but two of them on the log 

 at one time, and the third was now on my bank. The 

 largest was in the middle, the other two being about of a 

 size. I made up my mind, therefore, to first chance a shot 

 at the small bear on the log and then to turn my attention 

 to the largest one. Afterward, if things worked out as I 

 hoped, I could pay my compliments to the one on shore. 



I accordingly fired at the small bear, and hitting him 

 square in the shoulder, he dropped promptly and without 

 a murmur, but he dropped into the pool. Before the 

 other one on the log had time to make much of an inves- 

 tigation I hit him near the same place, but a little further 

 back, and he made for the shore. I paid no attention to 

 him, as I knew that he was fatally wounded and would not 

 go far, and slapping my third cartridge in place, I turned 

 to look for the third bear, but all I could see was the sway- 

 ing of the bushes where he had disappeared. The second 

 one shot went some fifty yards after reaching the bank, 

 when he fell, and was quite dead when I got to him. 



But now that the excitement was over and I had time 

 to take stock of my achievement, my satisfaction was 

 short-lived. The hides were not worth taking off. It had 

 been a useless slaughter and I was sorry that I had killed. 

 I took the large teeth and long claws of the dead bears, 

 but since then I have never, but once, shot at a grizzly 

 when it was fishing. 



This was some years later. I was out hunting with a 

 man from New York who was very anxious to kill a griz- 

 zly, having never shot one; so we made our way to one of 

 the creeks, where the bears fish, and soon finding a suita- 

 ble place, began our watch. This was some two miles 



