Hunting at High Altitudes 



snow still fell, we gathered about a huge camp-fire 

 and spent the time in discussing the events of the 

 evening fight and remarking upon the size, fierce- 

 ness and great vitality of the brute. The only 

 bear met with in subsequent years which was the 

 equal of this one in ferocity was the one killed 

 in 1880 near the north fork of Stinking Water. 

 This will be mentioned in its proper place. 



After a good night, which seemed more com- 

 fortable by contrast with the storm without, and 

 a warm breakfast, we mounted our horses ten go 

 back to the bear. At the buffalo carcass it was 

 found that a bear and two cubs had visited it, and 

 these we purposed to look for later. At the 

 thicket everything seemed quiet. Messiter and I 

 gave our horses to Fishel to hold, and pushed our 

 way cautiously in the direction of the locality 

 where the bear had been left behind the evening 

 before. Every precaution was taken to guard 

 against a surprise, but when we reached the middle 

 of the thicket and carefully pushed aside the wil- 

 lows, there, in a hastily improvised bed, the brute 

 lay stiff and stark. He was one of the largest of 

 grizzly bears, brownish in color, gradually turning 

 grizzly or silver-tipped, and in two months more 

 would have been called a silver-tip bear. Standing 

 on all fours he would have been three and a half 



