The Selkirks Revisited 131 



would run, they were as good as their guarantee. But 

 there their responsibility ended. When they struck a bear 

 trail they followed it, yelping with anticipation; when they 

 jumped the bear, if he ran, they ran after, still yelping. If 

 he refused to run and contented himself with walking, 

 they followed in silent hope of his changing his mind. But 

 if he entered a thicket and stopped, they took it as a sign 

 that there was nothing doing, and came home. This was 

 why we had heard no sign from them the day they had es- 

 corted the bear three miles up the trail from camp. This 

 was why they had always stopped at the Gateway, where 

 the bear took refuge in the down timber. This was why 

 Big Foot was still living up Wilson's Creek. I sat down 

 and laughed. Then I took up the bear's trail and found 

 such a showing of blood as to make me believe that she 

 lay dead not far away. But it gave me so much pain to 

 pull myself up the hill that I soon had to give over, and as 

 it set in to rain that evening and kept it up all night, the 

 blood was washed away so that we never found the bear. 

 We did take the dogs and go after the cubs, and we jumped 

 them at the point where I had shot the mother. I saw one 

 of them as he ran with the dogs after him, but these 

 stopped barking as soon as he stopped running, and after 

 a couple of hours we gave it up. It was impossible to get 

 the cubs out of that brush with those dogs. That night 

 the horses came, and the next day we packed up and re- 

 turned home. 



Up to this time I had never doubted that a she grizzly 

 would fight for her young. I would have staked almost 

 anything that an old grizzly with cubs would charge every- 

 thing within fifty yards. Here, however, was one that I 



