318 Old Ephraim. 



There was plenty of elk sign about, and we saw several 

 black-tail deer. These last were very common on the 

 mountains, but we had not hunted them at all, as we were 

 in no need of meat. But this afternoon we came across a 

 buck with remarkably fine antlers, and accordingly I shot 

 it, and we stopped to cut off and skin out the horns, 

 throwing the reins over the heads of the horses and leav- 

 ing them to graze by themselves. The body lay near the 

 crest of one side of a deep valley, or ravine, which headed 

 up on the plateau a mile to our left. Except for scattered 

 trees and bushes the valley was bare ; but there was heavy 

 timber along the crests of the hills on its opposite side. 

 It took some time to fix the head properly, and we 

 were just ending when Merrifield sprang to his feet and 

 exclaimed : " Look at the bears ! " pointing down into the 

 valley below us. Sure enough there were two bears 

 (which afterwards proved to be an old she and a nearly 

 full-grown cub) travelling up the bottom of the valley, 

 much too far off for us to shoot. Grasping our rifles and 

 throwing off our hats we started off as hard as we could 

 run, diagonally down the hill-side, so as to cut them off. 

 It was some little time before they saw us, when they 

 made off at a lumbering gallop up the valley. It would 

 seem impossible to run into two grizzlies in the open, but 

 they were going up hill and we down, and moreover the 

 old one kept stopping. The cub would forge ahead and 

 could probably have escaped us, but the mother now and 

 then stopped to sit up on her haunches and look round at 

 us, when the cub would run back to her. The upshot was 

 that we got ahead of them, when they turned and went 



