82 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



using a fallen tree for a seat. While deeply engaged in a 

 brown-study something startled me, and, on looking up, I 

 saw a bear and two cubs a short distance away picking 

 berries and searching old logs for grubs and the nests of 

 ants. As I wished to study them, I moved quietly to one 

 side and secured a perch to the leeward in a vine-maple 

 tree. While seated there, I had a good opportunity of 

 watching them ; and so amused was I with their affection- 

 ate demeanor and joyous gambols, that I took no notice of 

 the direction in which they were moving. In the course 

 of perhaps half an hour they jumped on the log on which 

 I had been lounging, but they had scarcely done so before 

 they were off again and hastening into the forest at their 

 best pace, as if they were thoroughly frightened. They 

 must have got the odor left by my hand on the wood, or 

 they would not have left such a good grub and ant ground 

 as the log without searching it well, and feasting on its 

 dainties. I have found that farmers, when setting traps 

 for bears, could not get one to approach them until after 

 the wind and sun, or dew and rain, had taken away the 

 smell which the hands had left upon them. 



Being cautious and vigilant, and "knowing," in the sense 

 of cunning, the bear is no stupid, to be slain without some 

 exercise of the perceptive qualities, unless it is taken at a 

 great disadvantage. I have known it to be captured in 

 Western rivers by steamboats and canoes ; and one of the 

 pleasantest runs that I ever had after it \vas in a canoe, on 

 the Chehalis River, in Washington Territory. It is even 

 found swimming Puget Sound, which is an inland sea ; 

 and it is no uncommon occurrence to see it using the cur- 

 rents of streams in its autumn migrations from the high 

 cold mountains to the sheltered forests and warm climate 

 of the coast. It takes boldly to the water when necessary, 

 and seems to think little of swimming several miles, and at 

 a good pace too. It is no rare occurrence for a steamboat 

 to capture one while it is swimming Puget Sound, and I 

 heard of a boat that ran down two in one day in the Sno- 

 homish River, a stream emptying into Possession Sound. 



