294 The Wilderness Hunter. 



roots, or munching berries, or slouching along the path, 

 or perhaps rising suddenly from the lush, rank plants amid 

 which he has been lying. Or it may be that the bear will 

 be spied afar rooting in an open glade or on a bare 

 hill-side. 



In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to find some 

 favorite feeding-ground, where there are many roots or 

 berry-bearing bushes, or else to lure the grisly to a carcass. 

 This last method of "baiting" for bear is under ordinary 

 circumstances the only way which affords even a mod- 

 erately fair chance of killing them. They are very 

 cunning, with the sharpest of noses, and where they have 

 had experience of hunters they dwell only in cover where 

 it is almost impossible for the best of still-hunters to 

 approach them. 



Nevertheless, in favorable ground a man can often find 

 and kill them by fair stalking, in berry time, or more 

 especially in the early spring, before the snow has gone 

 from the mountains, and while the bears are driven by 

 hunger to roam much abroad and sometimes to seek their 

 food in the open. In such cases the still-hunter is stirring 

 by the earliest dawn, and walks with stealthy speed to 

 some high point of observation from which he can over- 

 look the feeding-grounds where he has previously dis- 

 covered sign. From the coign of vantage he scans the 

 country far and near, either with his own keen eyes or with 

 powerful glasses ; and he must combine patience and good 

 sight with the ability to traverse long distances noiselessly 

 and yet at speed. He may spend two or three hours sit- 

 ting still and looking over a vast tract of country before 



