BATISTE, THE BEAR IIUNTER 147 



beast will shun a prairie fire. There was no wind. 

 It was the dead hazy calm of Indian summer in the 

 late autumn with the sun swimming in the purplish 

 smoke like a blood-red shield all day and the serpent 

 line of flame flickering and darting little tongues of 

 vermilion against the deep blue horizon all night, days 

 filled with the crisp smell of withered grasses, nights 

 as clear and cold as the echo of a bell. On a windless 

 plain there is no danger from a prairie fire. One may 

 travel for weeks without nearing or distancing the 

 waving tide of fire against a far sky; and the four 

 trappers, running short of rations, decided to try to 

 flank the fire coming around far enough ahead to 

 intercept the game that must be moving away from the 

 fire line. 



Nearly all hunters, through some dexterity of 

 natural endowment, unconsciously become specialists. 

 One man sees beaver signs where another sees only 

 deer. For Ba tiste, the page of nature spelled 

 B-E-A-R! Fifteen bear in a winter is a wonderfully 

 good season s work for any trapper. Ba tiste s record 

 for one lucky winter was fifty-four. After that he 

 was known as the bear hunter. Such a reputation 

 affects keen hunters differently. The Indian grows 

 cautious almost to cowardice. Ba tiste grew rash. 

 He would follow a wounded grisly to cover. He would 

 afterward laugh at the episode as a joke if the wounded 

 brute had treed him. &quot; For sure, good t ing dat was 

 not de prairie dat tarn,&quot; he would say, flinging down 

 the pelt of his foe. The other trappers with Indian 

 blood in their veins might laugh, but they shook their 

 heads when his back was turned. 



Flanking the fire by some of the great gullies that 



