33 2 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



nothing, until he happened to cast his eyes upward, 

 and there was the bear, almost overhead, and about 

 twenty-five feet up a tree; and in as many seconds 

 afterward it came down to the ground with a 

 bounce, stone dead. It was a young bear, in its sec- 

 ond year, and had probably never before seen a man, 

 which accounted for the ease with which it was 

 treed and taken. One minor result of the encounter 

 was to convince Merrifield the list of whose faults 

 did not include lack of self-confidence that he could 

 run down any bear; in consequence of which idea 

 we on more than one subsequent occasion went 

 through a good deal of violent exertion. 



Merrifield's tale made me decide to shift camp 

 at once, and go over to the spot where the bear- 

 tracks were so plenty. Next morning we were off, 

 and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a val- 

 ley with steep, wooded sides, but with good feed for 

 the horses in the open bottom. We rigged the can- 

 vas wagon sheet into a small tent, sheltered by the 

 trees from the wind, and piled great pine logs near 

 by where we wished to place the fire; for a night 

 camp in the sharp fall weather is cold and dreary 

 unless there is a roaring blaze of flame in front of 

 the tent. 



That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a 

 fine bull elk. I came home alone toward nightfall, 

 walking through a reach of burned forest, where 

 there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black 

 mould. When nearly through it I came across the 

 huge, half-human footprints of a great grisly, which 



