342 THE COLONEL HAS GOOD SPOKT. 



nothing, and thinking that perhaps I could see hetter outside, 

 I retired in such haste that I left some skin and part of my 

 clothing on the thorns. On getting outside and finding that 

 the bear had not followed me, I allowed time for the smoke to 

 clear away, and then went in again, and saw him lying in much 

 the same position, and evidently dead. I had desperately hard 

 work turning him over and opening him, as he was the largest 

 bear I had yet killed ; the thorns too were very dense, and it 

 was almost impossible to cut them with a common butcher's 

 knife ; however I managed it at last, and having carefully taken 

 the bearings of the place, and blazed several trees leading to 

 it, I rode off towards camp, but did not get in till the next 

 morning, as the bear-fight occupied some time. 



I found that the Colonel had killed three bears, though none 

 of them were as large as my last, and he had also had good 

 sport with deer and elk. There were certainly more bears near 

 our camp than anywhere in that range, and many more elk, 

 and I have often noticed, as a very curious thing, that two 

 parties of hunters will hunt the same range, some miles apart, 

 and while one will have no sport at all, the other will have as 

 much as they want. 



One of the ColoneFs bears had been killed in an unusual 

 manner. He had seen the bear out in an open place, and by 

 keeping behind him and walking very cautiously had got 

 within thirty or forty yards, killing him at the first shot. At 

 the beginning of the trip the Colonel used solid balls in a single 

 Sharp's rifle, but seeing my express balls and the execution 

 they did, he sent into Helena, the capital of Montana, and had 

 an express mould made, and from that time used express balls 

 with excellent results ; his rifle was a '45, with a charge of a 



