Nights with the Grizzlies 
any moment to rise out of the ground? How 
every noise—the crackling of a twig—star- 
tled you? So it is with me when watching on 
the trail of this bear at such an hour. When 
occasion requires it, his movement is as 
stealthy and noiseless as a cat’s. You hear 
the rolling of a boulder up the mountain-side 
in the timber several hundred yards away. 
You know it must be done by some large 
animal, and you suspect a bear. Presently 
the same noise, but closer, and your faculties 
are all on the guz vzve, and you are every 
moment expecting his appearance. You wait 
what, to the excited senses, appears a long 
time. What has become of him? It was, 
perhaps, a false alarm, and you are dis- 
couraged; when, presently, there he stands, 
apparently right on you, and seemingly risen 
out of the ground. 
So it was on this occasion, as I lay in the 
open about thirty feet from the thicket, in 
a prone position in the grass, clothed in 
soiled buckskin, with three cartridges in left 
hand and finger on trigger, ready to rise into 
a sitting position and deliver fire. Hark! 
the crackling of brush almost behind me. It 
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