BATISTE, THE BEAR HUNTER 225 



katchewan to flow south to the Missouri. Ba'tiste and the three 

 trappers who were with him did not know which side of the boundary 

 they were on. By slow travel, stopping one day to trap beaver, 

 pausing on the way to forage for meat, building their canoes where 

 they needed them and abandoning the boats when they made a 

 long overland portage, they were three weeks north of the American 

 fur post on the banks of the Missouri. The hunters were travelling 

 light-handed. That is, they were carrying only 2 little salt and 

 tea and tobacco. For the rest, they were depending on their 

 muskets. Game had not been plentiful. 



Between the prairie and "the Mountains of the Setting Sun" 

 — as the Indians call the Rockies — a long line of tortuous, snaky 

 red crawled sinuously over the crests of the foothills ; and all 

 game — bird and beast — will shun a prairie fire. There was no 

 wind. It was the dead hazy calm of Indian summer in the late 

 autumn with the sun swimming in the purplish smoke like a blood- 

 red shield all day and the serpent line of flame flickering and darting 

 little tongues of vermilion against the deep blue horizon all night, 

 days filled with the crisp smell of withered grasses, nights as clear 

 and cold as the echo of a bell. On a windless plain there is no 

 danger from a prairie fire. One may travel for weeks without 

 nearing or distancing the waving tide of fire against a far sky ; and 

 the four trappers, running short of rations, decided to try to flank 

 the fire coming around far enough ahead to intercept the game 

 that must be moving away from the fire line. 



Nearly all hunters, through some dexterity of natural endow- 

 ment, unconsciously become specialists. One man sees beaver 

 signs where another sees only deer. For Ba'tiste, the page of 

 nature spelled B-E-A-R! Fifteen bear in a winter is a wonderfully 

 good season's work for any trapper. Ba'tiste's record for one 

 lucky winter was fifty-four. After that he was known as the bear 

 hunter. Such a reputation affects keen hunters differently. The 

 Indian grows cautious almost to cowardice. Ba'tiste grew rash. 

 He would follow a wounded grizzly to cover. He would afterward 



