174 The Grizzly Bear 



We determined, after a pretty thorough discussion of 

 the matter, to devote ourselves to securing a picture of 

 this grizzly mother and her family; and as, after my ex- 

 perience with my volunteer helpers the week before, I did 

 not propose to try any more amateurs without having them 

 serve an apprenticeship, I only took one camera out the 

 next night. We set that on the trail the she grizzly had 

 been using, and stretched a fish-line to our hiding-place 

 about a hundred feet away. We placed no wire across the 

 trail, and from this time forward never again used that 

 device. 



The old lady and her youngsters proved to be on time, 

 and just about seven o'clock I caught sight of them in an 

 open glade to our left. It was my first near view of her, 

 and I saw at once that she was as cross-grained and ugly 

 a brute as one was likely to meet in a lifetime. I in- 

 stantly decided that two hundred feet was none too much 

 space to interpose between her and the man who proposed 

 to challenge her with a flash, and, whispering to Kerfoot 

 to come quietly, we backed away, unrolling the fish-line 

 as we went, until we came to the end of it. The mother 

 was an old bald-face; one of the cubs was almost black, 

 one was gray, and the third had a silvery sheen to its fur. 

 The whole family came on, the mother looking neither to 

 the right nor left and paying little attention to the cubs 

 that ran, now ahead and now behind her. She did not 

 seem to suspect the presence of the camera, and when she 

 and two of the cubs were opposite the lens I pulled the 

 string. The flash, however, refused to explode, and when 

 I pulled again, to my utter disgust the string broke. It 

 proved to have become entangled with an intervening 



