30 The Black Bear 



was the smell of the grizzlies, of which the Black Bear 

 is more or less afraid, that affected him. He still re- 

 membered his mother, and on every occasion when he 

 could get to our pile of bear hides he would dig out her 

 skin — the only Black Bear skin in the lot — sniff it all 

 over^ and lie on it until dragged away. Indeed he 

 seemed to mourn so much over it, even whimpering 

 and howling every time the wind was in the right di- 

 rection for him to smell it, that we finally had to keep 

 this hide away from camp. 



One day a little later on, as we were working our way 

 toward the Montana side of the mountains, we arrived 

 after a hard day's work at the bank of a large stream 

 flowing into the middle fork of the Clearwater River. 

 As the stream to be forded was a swift and dangerous 

 one, and as we had as high a mountain to climb on 

 the other side as the one we had come down, we de- 

 cided to go into camp and wait till morning to find a 

 practicable ford. In this deep canyon there was no feed 

 for the horses, and not even enough level ground on 

 which to set up our tent. So the horses were tied up to 

 the trees, supper was cooked and eaten, Ben's *^coop," 

 as we called his skin house, was placed under a tree, 

 and then each of us rolled up in his blankets and was 

 soon lulled to sleep by the roar of the water over the 

 boulders that lined the river's bed. 



We were up and ready for the start before it 

 was fairly light in the deep canyon, and, on account of 



