56 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



bing traps, stealing the trapper's food and trap-baits, and at the 

 same time avoiding the traps set for him. He is wonderfully 

 expert in springing steel traps for the bait or prey there is in 

 them, without getting caught himself. He will follow up a 

 trap line for miles, springing all traps and devouring all baits 

 as he goes. Sometimes in sheer wantonness he will throw a 

 trap into a river, and again he will bury a trap in deep snow. 

 Dead martens in traps are savagely torn from them. Those 

 that can not be eaten on the spot are carried off and skilfully 

 cached under two or three feet of snow. 



Trapper Smith once set a trap for a wolverine, and planted 

 close behind it a young moose skull with some flesh upon it. 

 The wolverine came in the night, started at a point well away 

 from the trap, dug a tunnel through six feet of snow, fetched up 

 well behind the trap, and triumphantly dragged away the 

 head through his tunnel. 



From the testimony of W. H. Wright, of Spokane, in his 

 interesting book on "The Grizzly Bear," and for other reasons, 

 I am convinced that the Rocky Mountain silver-tip grizzly 

 is our brightest North American animal, and very keen of nose, 

 eye, ear and tirain. " Mr. Wright says that "the grizzly bear 

 far excels in cunning any other animal found throughout the 

 Rocky Mountains, and, for that matter, he far excels them all 

 combined." While the last clause is a large order, I will not 

 dispute the opinion of a man of keen intelligence who has 

 lived much among the most important and interesting wild 

 animals of the Rockies. 



In the Bitter Root Mountains Mr. Wright and his hunting 

 party once set a bear trap for a grizzly, in a pen of logs, 

 well baited with fresh meat. On the second day they found 

 the pen demolished, the bait taken out, and everything that 

 was movable piled on the top of the trap. 



The trap was again set, this time loosely, under a bed of 

 moss. The grizzly came and joyously ate all the meat that 

 was scattered around the trap, but the moss and the trap were 



