140 The Grizzly Bear 



The next morning one of the party happened to pass 

 the place and found that our grizzly had been there, had 

 made a meal off of what was left of the cow, had then gone 

 down, seized the carcass of the bull, dragged it up the 

 steep hill, and placed it on top of the cow. He had then 

 gone down again, gathered up the remains of the calf, 

 added them to the pile, and, digging into the side of the 

 hill, had buried the lot. 



On the opposite side of the creek the bank was equally 

 steep. At its top there was a heavy growth of timber and 

 underbrush, and we found that the bear had come from 

 this cover, and that his trail, winding down the bank, 

 passed between two large cedar-trees on his way to the 

 creek. We therefore set the trap between these two cedars 

 and watched the place until dark, but the bear did not 

 show himself. The next morning, however, we found that 

 he had been to his cache for a meal, but that, instead of 

 travelling his old trail between the cedars, he had circled 

 them, and although we watched again that night, we saw 

 nothing of him. 



We were now within two days of the expiration of our 

 stay, and some members of the party, who had never seen 

 so large a bear (his track measured fifteen inches), de- 

 termined to set a spring-gun for him. After some planning 

 they settled upon the following scheme : A few feet down- 

 hill from the old cedar tree, behind which the bear had 

 buried the meat, they rigged up a gun with its butt against 

 the base of the rocks, and its muzzle pointing toward the 

 barrier of down timber. A silk fish-line was then attached 

 to the trigger and fastened at the other end to one of these 

 fallen trees. Thus, if the bear approached his cache from 



