BEAR-HUNTING 



date, and willing to leave easy details to subordi- 

 nates. Kuroki went on over, and as soon as I had 

 picked up our hats and belts I followed him. The 

 snow was red, the trail plain, but someway Kuroki 

 managed not to find that cripple. Perhaps the crip- 

 ple seemed too vigorous to suit him. He said it 

 went down in a farther canon and that we could not 

 get it until the next day. It was now midnight, and 

 the light was very dim. 



Wet, cold, hungry, we skinned out our only bear, 

 and packed down the awful mountainside in the 

 sheer dark, fording the river far below, where it 

 roared not quite so wildly over the rocks. So, at 

 half-past two in the morning, we reached the beach 

 where our lieutenant should have been. He, think- 

 ing that the Grizzly Bear Company, Limited, was 

 permanently disbanded, had taken the dory and 

 gone to camp. We built a fire and in an hour saw 

 the dory tossing in the wild sea as he crossed the 

 dangerous arm of the ocean once again. Then 

 some sort of breakfast, many congratulations, and 

 a few plans. 



Organization again proved its worth. Kuroki and 

 I were pretty well done out, but a fresh man re- 

 mained. He was delegated to finish the work we 

 had begun. The question was, how could he find 

 our crippled bear which by this time, we thought, 



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