TWENTY YEARS IN THE ROCKIES. 239 



the air was fragrant with sweet odors. I was taken up with 

 enjoyment of the place that I had almost forgotten the deer, 

 when suddenly he emerged from a thicket and walked bold- 

 ly across a little flat. He was a large buck, and had shed his 

 horns, but the new growths were about six inches long, re- 

 sembling cucumbers in shape. I was just weighing the right 

 and wrong of shooting him, when he turned his head down 

 the stream, gave a snort and dashed off in the direction he 

 had come. 



Rising to my feet I caught my gun, but could not com- 

 mand a view of the locality where he had become fright- 

 ened, so I carefully crept down and took my stand where he 

 had been. I was just arriving at the conclusion that Bill had 

 made a sneak into my hunting ground, when I saw the tops 

 of a bush sway to and fro as though some animal were rub- 

 bing against it. After a tedious time of waiting,, the bushes 

 moved in several places and I could scarcely hold myself, for 

 I was certain now that I was to have a bear fight. And so it 

 proved. At that moment a huge silver-tip bear and a cub 

 came out into plain sight. I at once drew a bead on her head, 

 but instantly realized that if the old one were killed first, that 

 the cub would disappear, so I quickly decided to make sure of 

 the young one and trust the mother to show fight, thus af- 

 fording me another shot. 



Before I could shoot, a third came out, and as the cub 

 climbed around the mother, pulling and hauling, she gave it 

 a motherly box and turned his little bearship up side down. 

 I had waited now as long as I could for I was getting ner- 

 vous. I pressed my old Bullard rifle tightly against my 

 shoulder, drew on the two-year-old bear, and fired. The val- 

 ley vibrated with the sharp crash and the ball did its fatal 

 work. He lay quivering on his back with his feet straight up, 

 but the report had not died away when the cub received a 

 bullet which broke his back, as he turned toward the bushes. 



