ON THE PRAIRIE 231 



themselves. The body lay near the crest of 

 one side of a deep valley, or ravine, which 

 headed up on the plateau a mile to our left 

 Except for scattered trees and bushes the 

 valley was bare; but there was heavy tim- 

 ber along the crests of the hills on its oppo- 

 site side. It took some time to fix the head 

 properly, and we were just ending when 

 Merrifield sprang to his feet and exclaimed : 

 " Look at the bears ! " pointing down into 

 the valley below us. Sure enough there 

 were two bears (which afterwards proved to 

 be an old she and a nearly full-grown cub) 

 travelling up the bottom of the valley, much 

 too far off for us to shoot. Grasping our 

 rifles and throwing off our hats we started 

 off as hard as we could run, diagonally down 

 the hill-side, so as to cut them off. It was 

 some little time before they saw us, when 

 they made off at a lumbering gallop up the 

 valley. It would seem impossible to run into 

 two grizzlies in the open, but they were 

 poing up hill and we down, and moreover 

 the old one kept stopping. The cub would 



