234 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



pipe and sat down to have a smoke while his dogs were busily 

 engaged. Presently they centred on a certain spot, and 

 Oo-koo-hoo, going over, discovered the tell-tale hoar frost. 

 Twisting out of his snowshoes — for an Indian never has to 

 touch his hands to them when he puts them on or takes them 

 off — he used one of them for a shovel, and digging away the 

 snow, he came upon a bear's wash. It was quite a cave and 

 dark inside, and as the dogs refused to enter, the hunter crawled 

 into the entrance and reaching in as far as he could with his 

 hand, felt the forms of two bears. Making sure of the exact 

 position of the head of one of them, he then shoved his gun 

 in until the muzzle was close to the ear of one of the bears 

 and then he fired. The explosion aroused the other bear and 

 as it crawled out Oo-koo-hoo killed it with his axe. The latter 

 was a brown bear while the former was a black. 



When a bear in his den shows fight and threatens danger, 

 the hunter may wedge two crossed poles against the opening 

 of the wash, leaving only enough space for the brute to squeeze 

 through and thus prevent it from making a sudden rush. 

 Then when the bear does try to come out, the hunter, standing 

 over the opening, kills it with the back of his axe. Sometimes 

 a second hole is dug in order to prod the beast with a pole to 

 make it leave its den. The white hunter frequently uses fire 

 to smoke a bear out, but not infrequently he succeeds in ruin- 

 ing the coat by singeing the hair. It requires more skill, how- 

 ever, to find a bear's wash than it does to kill him in his den. 

 The Indians hunt for bear washes in the vicinity of good fishing 

 grounds or in a district where berries have been plentiful. 



One winter when I happened to be spending a few days 

 at Brunswick House an old Indian woman came to call upon 

 the Hudson's Bay trader's wife, and, while she was having 

 afternoon tea, she casually remarked that while on her way 

 to the Post she had espied a bear wash. Digging down into 

 its den with one of her snowshoes, she had killed the brute with 



