60 The Grizzly Bear 



bank and make for the timber down the stream. The 

 water was ice cold and I had been nearly frozen before 

 taking to it, but I had no regrets. I waited for what seemed 

 to me a half-hour, but I could hear nothing beyond the 

 rush of the water as it surged around the boulders, and at 

 last it got so cold that I felt that I would as soon be clawed 

 by a bear as frozen to death. So I tried to make my way up- 

 stream, thinking to reach a point above the bend and there 

 get out and go to camp; but the water was so rapid and 

 seemed to me to make so much noise as it struck against 

 my neck, that I was afraid the bear would hear me if he 

 was listening, as I supposed he was. He was behaving so 

 differently from the bears I was accustomed to that I was 

 at a loss how to size him up. 



When I found I could not go up the stream I decided 

 to go down, and by hanging on to the roots, slid noiselessly 

 along for about fifty yards. Then, as I still heard nothing 

 of the bear, I concluded that he had either left the spot or 

 was keeping quiet and watching for me to reappear, and, 

 determined to at least have a look, I got up on my knees, 

 scraped the water out of my shirt, and peered cautiously 

 over the bank. But I was still too low to see over the 

 bushes, so I crawled ashore and raised up enough to look 

 about me. Still I could see no bear. I now began to fear 

 that he had escaped me, instead of I him, and I made up 

 my mind to creep to my gun, cut the cartridge out, and 

 hunt for him. 



It makes me laugh to this day when I think of the 

 picture I must have made, first crawling a few feet, then 

 lying still and listening. It was the most conscientious 

 stalking I ever did. When I reached the log and looked 



