LET US GO AFIELD 



bear. Market was closing weak for the industrials. 

 At last, as I took in the wide expanse of broken 

 country that lay for five miles ahead of me, I saw 

 something which forced me to look again. 



To the novice big game never looks as he expects 

 it to look, and perhaps a novice might not have 

 looked a second time. There was a dark blotch or 

 blur down there on the gray-brown surface beyond 

 the far side of a great canon. It did not look quite 

 like a rock, nor quite like a tree it seemed some- 

 how suspicious. Fearing to take my eyes from it 

 while I reached for the field glasses, which are a 

 part of any bear hunter's equipment, I gazed stead- 

 ily, asking to be convinced that it was not a rock and 

 not a tree or bush or blotch of moss upon the moun- 

 tainside. At last suspicion became conviction. The 

 drab blur showed motion, which always means 

 game. It split into two, into three parts, all now in 

 motion! I heard someone say, in a voice which I 

 presume was my own, but which sounded small up 

 there on the great wind-swept mountain top, "Bear, 

 by Heaven !" There is no other big game on Kodiak 

 Island except bear. I knew to a certainty now that 

 these were my three bears which had no doubt 

 scented us that morning ten miles back in the valley 

 and had promptly proceeded to leave the country. 

 It was great good fortune to get sight of them 



220 



