3JO Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



should be carefully beaten through, or else a bait 

 should be left out and a watch kept on it to catch 

 the bear when he has come to visit it. 



For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn 

 range we did not come across any grisly. 



Although it was still early in September, the 

 weather was cool and pleasant, the nights being 

 frosty; and every two or three days there was a 

 flurry of light snow, which rendered the labor of 

 tracking much more easy. Indeed, throughout our 

 stay on the mountains, the peaks were snow-capped 

 almost all the time. Our fare was excellent, con- 

 sisting of elk venison, mountain grouse, and small 

 trout; the last caught in one of the beautiful little 

 lakes that lay almost up by timber line. To us, 

 who had for weeks been accustomed to make small 

 fires from dried brush, or from sage-brush roots, 

 which we dug out of the ground, it was a treat to 

 sit at night before the roaring and crackling pine 

 logs ; as the old teamster quaintly put it, we had at 

 last come to a land "where the wood grew on trees." 

 There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods, 

 and we came across a number of bands of cow and 

 calf elk, or of young bulls; but after several days' 

 hunting, we were still without any head worth tak- 

 ing home, and had seen no sign of grisly, which 

 was the game we were especially anxious to kill ; for 

 neither Merrifield nor I had ever seen a wild bear 

 alive. 



Sometimes we hunted in company ; sometimes each 



