The Selkirks Revisited 119 



eye was caught by something in the bushes just across the 

 sHde — something that looked Hke hair moving in the 

 wind — and I told Coleman that I believed the bear was 

 lying down over there in the sun. He, however, pooh- 

 poohed the idea, saying that for his part he did not be- 

 lieve these northern grizzlies ever lay down anywhere; and 

 he proceeded to jump the creek and start across the slide. 

 As he did so I saw the spot I had taken to be a sleeping 

 bear move, raise its head, look over its shoulder at Cole- 

 man, and start to move away; and as there was no chance 

 to give Coleman the shot, I hurriedly fired myself and 

 scored a clean miss. The bear was now well on his feet and 

 under pretty good headway, but I would have reached his 

 shoulder with my second shot had he not, just as I pressed 

 the trigger, turned his head to look at us and taken the 

 bullet full in the mouth, which it swept clean of front teeth 

 on both jaws. Coleman now got into the game, and as the 

 bear was going straight away from him, planted a shot 

 fairly in the centre of his back, cutting the spine, and he 

 rolled down the bank to our very feet. And so, at last, 

 tamedly enough we made our first kill among the reputedly 

 savage grizzlies of the Selkirks. 



The bear was not a large one, weighing only about 

 three hundred pounds, and Shields, who, with the old 

 trapper, now came up, said it was not the one we had 

 started after. That one, it seems, had moved off into the 

 bushes almost as soon as we left camp, and examination 

 showed that the one we killed had had a very comfortable 

 bed in the brush and had probably been lying there for 

 some time. 



The next day the old trapper made the round of his 



