ALASKAN BEAR. 149 



i 



did not hibernate, as other bears in that 

 region do. He may have been a sort of 

 crank. No one who knew about him, or 

 who had been in camp long, would hurt 

 him; but a crowd of strangers, passing up 

 the trail near our Klondike cabin, saw him, 

 and as he did not try to get away he was 

 soon dead. He weighed 400 pounds, and 

 they sold him where he lay for one dollar 

 a pound. 



I fell in with a famous bear-hunter, a 

 few miles up from the mouth of the Klon 

 dike early in September, before the snow 

 fell, and with him made a short hunt. He 

 has wonderful bear sense. He has but one 

 eye and but one side of a face, the rest of 

 him having been knocked off by the slash 

 of a bear's paw. He is known as Bear Bill. 



The moss is very deep and thick and 

 elastic in that region, so that no tracks are 

 made except in a worn trail. But Bill saw 

 where a bit of moss had been disturbed 

 away up on a mountain side, and he sat 

 right dow r n and turned his one eye and all 



