334 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



liking for carrion. On visiting the place where 

 Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found that 

 the grislies had been there before us, and had ut 

 terly devoured the carcass, with cannibal relish. 

 Hardly a scrap was left, and we turned our steps to 

 ward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was 

 quite late in the afternoon when we reached the 

 place. A grisly had evidently been at the carcass 

 during the preceding night, for his great footprints 

 were in the ground all around it, and the carcass it 

 self was gnawed and torn, and partially covered 

 with earth and leaves for the grisly has a curious 

 habit of burying all of his prey that he does not at 

 the moment need. A great many ravens had been 

 feeding on the body, and they wheeled about over 

 the tree-tops above us, uttering their barking croaks. 

 The forest was composed mainly of what are 

 called ridge-pole pines, which grow close together, 

 and do not branch out until the stems are thirty or 

 forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees 

 we walked over a carpet of pine needles, upon which 

 our moccasined feet made no sound. The woods 

 seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken 

 now and then by the strange noises always to be 

 heard in the great forests, and which seem to mark 

 the sad and everlasting unrest of the wilderness. 

 We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree which 

 had toppled over until its upper branches struck in 

 the limb crotch of another, that thus supported it 

 at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the 

 ground far enough to prevent the bear s smelling 



