STEEP TRAILS 



dogs; deer, antelope, and elk, usually abun- 

 dant, were now scarce because the region had 

 been closely hunted over by the Indians before 

 their arrival. 



Lewis and Clark had killed a number of 

 bears and saved the skins of the more interest- 

 ing specimens, and the variations they found 

 in size, color of the hair, etc., made great dif- 

 ficulty in classification. Wishing to get the 

 opinion of the Chopumish Indians, near one 

 of whose villages they were encamped, con- 

 cerning the various species, the explorers un- 

 packed their bundles and spread out for ex- 

 amination all the skins they had taken. The 

 Indian hunters immediately classed the white, 

 the deep and the pale grizzly red, the grizzly 

 dark-brown — in short, all those with the 

 extremities of the hair of a white or frosty 

 color without regard to the color of the ground 

 or foil — under the name of hoh-host. The 

 Indians assured them that these were all of 

 the same species as the white bear, that they 

 associated together, had longer nails than the 

 others, and never climbed trees. On the other 

 hand, the black skins, those that were black 

 with white hairs intermixed or with a white 

 breast, the uniform bay, the brown, and the 

 light reddish-brown, were classed under the 

 name yack-ah, and were said to resemble each 



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