220 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



on the coffee-pot. He had just begun to cook breakfast, 

 when a little bit of rock fell down, and made him look 

 up. Blamed if there wasn't a good big grizzly standin' 

 on the top of the rock wall, lookin' down over the edge, 

 at old John cookin' his breakfast. 



" Quick as lightnin' the old man grabs his gun, and 

 sends a ball into the bear; and blamed if the bear didn't 

 come tumblin' down, and fall plumb into the camp-fire. 

 The coffee, an' ashes, an' fire jest flew ; and the grizzly 

 jest raised Cain. All that old man Campbell thought 

 about was that good bear-skin, on the bear, about to 

 get burnt up! He dropped his gun, rushed up, and 

 begun a-grabbin' at the bear, to drag him out of the fire! 

 The bear was only half dead, and he grabbed, and clawed, 

 and bit at the old man, all the time the old man was grab- 

 bin' at him, and fightin' with him to get him drug outen 

 the fire before his pelt got burnt. The old man never 

 stopped to think that without his gun in his hands the 

 bear might up and maul him. He thought he must get 

 the bear out first, and then finish a-killin' him afterward." 



As John reached the point of his story, all uncon- 

 sciously he acted out, in thrilling style, the frantic man- 

 ner in which old John Campbell grabbed at a live 

 grizzly, to pluck him as a brand from the burning, and 

 save his vested rights in a twenty-dollar hide. It sent the 

 audience off into roars, the meaning of which John mis- 

 took, for he hastened to add, 



"Oh, that happened, all right! Mack and me saw 

 that bear's hide, with a burnt patch on the back, didn't 

 we, Mackl " 



