BEAR-HUNTING 



course, the traders stretch all these hides as hard as 

 they can; but it may be seen that the bears are al- 

 most unbelievably large. The Rockies hold nothing 

 approaching them. We sighed and lifted up our 

 eyes to the hills. "If we could only run across one 

 of these old boys!" said my ardent lieutenant. 



In the Rockies we sometimes get a grizzly to show 

 by baiting him with some large animal; but on 

 Kodiak Island there are no large animals but the 

 bears themselves. They get their immense stature 

 from abundant feed of salmon, on which they live 

 for most of the year when not asleep. At present, 

 they were no doubt digging roots and eating grass 

 until the berries and fish should come. I asked 

 Kuroki what we could use for bait. 



"I dunno," said he. "My peoples no use bait. 

 Bear smell um bait, him run twenty mile. Smell 

 um mans, run forty mile." 



"How far back in the hills do you think they are, 

 Kuroki?" 



"I dunno. My peoples stay on beach. Only 

 know, s'pose bear smell mans, him run forty mile." 



"Then your big bear seems a good deal of a cow- 

 ard, eh?" 



"I dunno," said Kuroki. "Plenty my peoples get 

 killed by bears, all right, all right." 



As it appeared that we had come far and learned 

 217 



