122 The Grizzly Bear 



feat and kept his huge weight from slipping downward by 

 simply twisting his fore paws till his huge claws engaged 

 the snow like hooks. To put it plainly, when he was 

 headed south, his fore claws pointed east, uphill. 



What with these tactics, and his natural speediness, 

 he was so far ahead of the dogs when he reached the sum- 

 mit of the mountain that, as his trail plainly showed, he 

 had stopped and stood on his hind legs to look or listen for 

 them, and then, dropping again on all-fours, he had started 

 down the opposite slope. Now, if his tactics in the ascent 

 had been masterly, his method of going down was spec- 

 tacular. The snow was comparatively soft for a depth of 

 two feet or so, and that bear's trail looked like the track of 

 a huge boulder. He had simply turned on full steam, 

 pulled the throttle wide open, and let her go. There were 

 places where I took nine steps to cover one of his jumps. 



Arrived at the bottom of the mountain I found that, 

 after all, the bear had made for and passed the place at 

 which we had looked for him, and that had we waited we 

 would probably have got a shot at him. As it was he 

 had followed one of our cut trails for half a mile and then 

 again turned up the mountain; and as it had begun to rain 

 and I had no coat, and as no man could successfully follow 

 a bear afoot in that snow, I also decided to return to camp. 



But fortune is a capricious lady, especially in the wil- 

 derness. She takes the keenest delight in making game of 

 our best efforts and in mocking our pet vanities, and then 

 she tosses the unexpected into our laps. Just as I turned 

 back a large grizzly came breaking through the brush at 

 my right, straight into the slide where I was standing, and, 

 without moving a step, I dropped him with a single shot. 



