Hunting in Many Lands 



old rim-fire .44-40 Winchester, the action of 

 which occasionally worked and occasionally did 

 not. Comparatively speaking, he was rather a 

 swell in the matter of firearms ; but if one 

 should put his trust in him in case of emergen- 

 cy as a sheet anchor to windward, there was 

 always the remote possibility, were the strain 

 too intense, that he might not be a dependence 

 of absolute security. 



The afternoon of this day, much against my 

 real inclination, but in accordance with the 

 prevailing desire, we started out, the whole 

 rabble of us, to follow the she grizzly's trail. 

 It could not be called a "still-hunt," for the 

 reason that six men hunting in a pack are 

 never still ; however, it did not matter. We 

 found in a neighboring gulch bits of the fleece, 

 bones and hides of three sheep, and the suffi- 

 ciently plain evidence, upon the trampled and 

 bloody ground, of recent feasts. Yet this was 

 the banqueting hall and not the children's 

 nursery. A bear thinks nothing of a little 

 stroll of ten miles or so before or after eating. 

 It aids digestion, and in case of a female, as 

 this was, wards off an attack of the nerves. 

 Particularly a bear with cubs would put at 

 least that distance between herself and hunt- 



206 



