7 8 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



suddenly from the lush, rank plants amid which ] 

 he has been lying. Or it may be that the bear 

 will be spied afar rooting in an open glade or 

 on a bare hill-side. 



In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to 

 find some favorite feeding ground, where there 

 are many roots or berry-bearing bushes, or 

 else to lure the grisly to a carcass. This last 

 method of " baiting " forbear is under ordinary 

 circumstances the only way which affords even 

 a moderately fair chance of killing them. 

 They are very cunning, with the sharpest of 

 noses, and where they have had experience of 

 hunters they dwell only in cover where it is al- 

 most impossible for the best of still-hunters to 

 approach them. 



Nevertheless, in favorable ground a man 

 can often find and kill them by fair stalking, 

 in berry time, or more especially in the early 

 spring, before the snow has gone from the 

 mountains, and while the bears are driven by 

 hunger to roam much abroad and sometimes 

 to seek their food in the open. In such cases 

 the still-hunter is stirring by the earliest dawn, 

 and walks with stealthy speed to some high 

 point of observation from which he can over- 

 look the feeding-grounds where he has previ- 

 ously discovered sign. From the coign of 

 vantage he scans the country far and near, 

 either with his own keen eyes or with powerful 

 glasses ; and he must combine patience and 

 good sight with the ability to traverse long dis- 

 tances noiselessly and yet at speed. He may 

 spend two or three hours sitting still and look- 



