Old Rphraim. 307 



small, wiry, cow-pony, we saw that he had packed behind 

 his saddle the fine, glossy pelt of a black bear. Better 

 still, he announced that he had been off about ten miles to 

 a perfect tangle of ravines and valleys where bear sign was 

 very thick ; and not of black bear either but of grizzly. 

 The black bear (the only one we got on the mountains) 

 he had run across by accident, while riding up a valley in 

 which there was a patch of dead timber grown up with 

 berry bushes. He noticed a black object which he first 

 took to be a stump ; for during the past few days we had 

 each of us made one or two clever stalks up to charred 

 logs which our imagination converted into bears. On 

 coming near, however, the object suddenly took to its 

 heels ; he followed over frightful ground at the pony's 

 best pace, until it stumbled and fell down. By this time 

 he was close on the bear, which had just reached the edge 

 of the wood. Picking himself up, he rushed after it, 

 hearing it growling ahead of him ; after running some 

 fifty yards the sounds stopped, and he stood still listening. 

 He saw and heard nothing, until he happened to cast his 

 eyes upwards, and there was the bear, almost overhead, 

 and about twenty-five feet up a tree ; and in as many 

 seconds afterwards it came down to the ground with a 

 bounce, stone dead. It was a young bear, in its second 

 year, and had probably never before seen a man, which 

 accounted for the ease with which it was treed and taken. 

 One minor result of the encounter was to convince Merri- 

 field the list of whose faults did not include lack of self- 

 confidence that he could run down any bear ; in conse- 

 quence of which idea we on more than one subsequent 

 occasion went through a good deal of violent exertion. 



