126 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



trail of a grizzly bear going north along the foot of the 

 slope. I began to ascend, but it became steeper and 

 steeper, and as it had been so cold the night before, an 

 inch of snow which covered it was very dry and slippery, 

 and parts of the slope where it had blown away were 

 almost ice. The ascent became more difficult and I had 

 to stretch out my hands and fairly crawl until reaching 

 a point where I could not retrace my steps without slip- 

 ping. It was so precipitous that it was very dangerous to 

 continue. I had to use the butt of my rifle as a staff and 

 jam it into the frozen ground at each step until, to my 

 relief, the crest was gained. I crossed the rolling fields 

 of snow extending to the main range beyond, and climb- 

 ing a mountain proceeded along the crest, scanning the 

 country on the other side. No sheep were seen, nor any 

 tracks, and I descended, took up the bear's trail, and 

 followed it until necessary to turn back if camp was to be 

 reached by dark. I had observed through my field- 

 glasses a band of sheep on the mountains north-east of 

 camp and thought that I could distinguish two dark 

 rams. I noticed that the night before a wolverine had 

 followed the back track of Selous's trail to a point op- 

 posite camp, where it had crossed the meadows and en- 

 tered the woods some distance away from the shelter. 

 After supper, Coghlan and I were sitting about the 

 fire, having concluded that Selous and Louis were passing 

 the night near the Clearwater draw, when we heard 

 them coming up through the woods. As Selous ap- 

 proached the fire, there was an elasticity in his step that 

 did not signify an arduous day's tramp without success, 



