8 The Grizzly Bear 



afterward that the traveller had had a pistol, one of the 

 old British bulldogs, in his overcoat pocket, and when 

 the robber told him to throw up his hands, he had simply 

 fired through his coat. The wounded man died in a few 

 hours, after exonerating his slayer by saying, "He is all 

 right, I'd have got him if he hadn't got me." This was 

 my introduction to Spokane. 



I lived in my tent for a year. I secured the contract 

 to carry the United States mail between the railroad 

 station and the post-office. There was only one small 

 sack a day each way, and not always that (I remember 

 that once there was not a bit of mail either way for thirty 

 days), so that it was not much of a job, but it threw me in 

 with Mr. Heath, the postmaster, and he, having a section 

 of land that he had homesteaded, about a mile out of town 

 and upon which no one would live because there was no 

 water, offered me three lots if I would build a house and 

 dig a well. The two boys I had had with me when I came 

 had got work and left, and there was a carpenter who had 

 struck town with no money and no work, and I boarded 

 him for a year to build my house. I dug the well. I got my 

 lumber from an old fellow who owned a saw-mill and 

 needed some repairs done on his machinery, but had no 

 money. I did the repairs and took my pay in lumber. 

 Two years later I sold the house and lots for $2,750 

 cash. 



Meanwhile I worked in Weeks's machine-shop, and 

 one Saturday afternoon, late in August, having heard of a 

 place where there were so many grizzly bears that no one 

 dared to go there, I started out with two other fellows who 

 thought they wanted to hunt bears, reached the promised 



