202 TRUE BEAR STORIES. 



the case by kicking the trigger and letting 

 the door fall with a dull thud plump upon 

 the old grizzly's nose. A hundred and sixty 

 pounds falling four feet is no laughing 

 affair when it hits one on the nose, and 

 bruin did not make light of it. He was 

 pained and surprised, and he went away 

 more in sorrow than in anger, judging from 

 the tone of his expostulating grunts and 

 snorts. 



When the snorts of the bear died away 

 in the distance, the correspondent pried 

 up the door, crawled out and cautiously 

 made his way through the dark woods to 

 his lonely camp. 



At this time there were six traps scat 

 tered through the mountains within a rad 

 ius of sixty miles, all of them set and 

 baited, and the more distant ones watched 

 by men employed for that purpose. One 

 of the traps was on a mountain that was 

 not pastured by cattle, or sheep, and as 

 there were no acorns in that part of the 

 country, the bears had to rustle for a living 



