174 The Wilderness Hunter 



struck so brisk a pace, plunging through thickets 

 and leaping from log to log in the slashes of fallen 

 timber, and from bowlder to bowlder in crossing 

 the rock-slides, that I could hardly keep up to him, 

 struggle as I would, and we each of us got several 

 ugly tumbles, saving our rifles at the expense of 

 scraped hands and bruised bodies. We went up one 

 side of the stream, intending to come down the 

 other ; for the forest belt was narrow enough to hunt 

 thoroughly. For two or three hours we toiled 

 through dense growth, varied by rock-slides, and 

 once or twice by marshy tracts, where water oozed 

 and soaked through the mossy hillsides, studded 

 rather sparsely with evergreens. In one of these 

 places we caught a glimpse of an animal which the 

 track showed to be a wolverine. 



Then we came to a spur of open hemlock forest; 

 and no sooner had we entered it than the hunter 

 stopped and pointed exultingly to a well-marked 

 game trail, in which it was easy at a glance to 

 discern the great round footprints of our quarry, 

 We hunted carefully over the spur and found sev 

 eral trails, generally leading down along the ridge; 

 we also found a number of beds, some old and some 

 recent, usually placed where the animal could keep 

 a lookout for any foe coming up from the valley. 

 They were merely slight hollows or indentations in 

 the pine needles ; and, like the game trails, were 

 placed in localities similar to those that would be 



