The Selkirks Revisited 121 



creek, managed, one by one, to make the shore. And then, 

 giving but a moment to shaking themselves free of cold water 

 and bad memories, they once more gave tongue and took 

 up the pursuit. Coleman and I, in order to cross, had to 

 go down-stream quite a distance to our foot-log, and by the 

 time we had retraced our steps the chase had swept out 

 of hearing. We followed the trail for half a mile or so and 

 found that the bear was making straight up the side of the 

 mountain, and thinking it likely that he was heading across 

 toward the little bottom where we had killed the horse the 

 year previous, and where so many trails converged, we 

 decided to skirt the base of the hill instead of scaling it. 

 But when we reached the bottom we found no trace of the 

 bear, nor could we hear the dogs, and as Coleman by now 

 was nearly tuckered out bucking the deep snow, he de- 

 cided to return to camp. 



But for my own part I had no such intention. Seeing 

 the first part of the bear's trail had fired me to see more of 

 it, and so, parting from Coleman at the point where the 

 grizzly had left the water, I followed in his wake. For 

 some distance he had kept alongside the hill, and then, find- 

 ing that the dogs were nearing him, he had turned straight 

 up the mountain. The surface of the snow was soft and his 

 tracks told their story plainly, and he was a wily old cam- 

 paigner, and a strategist that knew his own advantages. 

 In going up the mountain he had deliberately picked the 

 worst possible going, and, in places, had even scaled cliffs 

 that the dogs had had to go around. Again, he had turned 

 at right angles and run horizontally along hillsides so steep 

 that the dogs, to keep from falling headlong, had had to 

 give ground and veer downhill. He accomplished this 



