MY GRIZZLY-BEAR DAY 163 



the northern side, toward the spot where the two goat 

 carcasses lay on the slide-rock. The noise we made was 

 reduced to an irreducible minimum. 



We trod and straddled like men burglarizing Nat- 

 ure's sky-parlor. We broke no dead twigs, we scraped 

 against no dead branches, we slid over no fallen logs. 

 Step by step we stole down the hillside, as cautiously as 

 if we had known that a bear was really at the foot of it. 

 At no time would it have surprised us to have seen Old 

 Ephraim spring up from behind a bush or a fallen log, 

 within twenty feet of us. 



At last the gray slide-rock began to rise into view. 

 At last we paused, breathing softly and seldom, behind 

 a little clump of spruces. Charlie, who was a step in 

 advance, stretched his neck to its limit, and looked on 

 beyond the edge of the hill, to the very spot where lay 

 the remains of my first mountain goat. My view was 

 cut ofif by green branches and Charlie. 



He turned to me, and whispered in a perfectly color- 

 less way, 



" He's lying right on the carcass! " 



" What? Do you mean to say that a bear is really 

 there} ^^ I asked, in astonishment. 



"Yes I Stand here, and you can see him, — just over 

 the edge." 



I stepped forward and looked. Far down, fully 

 one hundred and fifty yards from where we were, 

 there lay a silvery-gray animal, head up, front paws out- 

 stretched. It was indeed a silver-tip; but it looked 

 awfully small and far away. He was out on the clean, 



