The Selkirks Revisited 125 



placed it where the old horse had been killed the year be- 

 fore. But the bears did not touch it. 



The old trapper came over to see us and reported seeing 

 quite a number of bears in his part of the country. He had 

 wounded one, but it got away, and he had also set several 

 traps, but none of the animals could be coaxed to walk into 

 them. He had used fish, honey, and molasses and had even 

 killed wild goats for bait, but the bear would have none of 

 them. After he had gone back, however, having killed a 

 goat ourselves, we laid some pieces of meat near the bones 

 of the old horse. We had also tied a choice piece for our 

 own use to the end of a rope, and had swung it from a high 

 limb for safe keeping. The next day we found that the bait 

 had not been touched, but the piece we had swung from 

 the tree was gone. The tree was clawed and torn, the rope 

 was broken, and our goat ham had vanished. 



This was almost too much for Coleman. He said he 

 had tried it the year before, and he was satisfied that no 

 one was smart enough to get ahead of these northern griz- 

 zlies, but I could not for the life of me understand how a 

 grizzly got up that tree. I would not, indeed, believe that 

 a bear had stolen the meat, and so proposed to set a trap, 

 not, however, with the expectation of catching one. We 

 therefore took one belonging to the old trapper and set it 

 at the foot of the tree, tied the rest of the goat meat to the 

 rope, and again swung it in the branches, and the next 

 morning we had a very large brown bear. This was the 

 first bear other than a grizzly that we had ever seen in that 

 country, and we were, of course, sorry to have caught it. 

 It was the first bear I had ever caught in a trap. 



We were now at our wits' end and ready to follow up 



