A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 



and firing at every glimpse. The animal had 

 gained complete cover when it released all 

 holds and came rolling back down into the 

 torrent, to be swept away, with Fred legging 

 along behind until he could wade in and drag 

 out his victim by the ears. 



We had matched all the shades of our wall 

 paper now, save only that in my blue room, 

 but a blue, or "glacier," bear, rarest of speci- 

 mens, is killed perhaps once in a lifetime. I 

 scoured the glaciers until I went snow-blind 

 and could not tell a black from a grizzly. We 

 saw a pair of blues one night on the Miles 

 moraine, and followed until our legs gave out, 

 whereupon Joe left Fred and me behind 

 and continued the pursuit, returning empty- 

 handed after a total of forty-eight hours' travel. 



Time was when I dared any man to outlast 

 me, but subways and pavements and hotel 

 cooking have so ruined my usefulness that a 

 paltry thirty miles of hill and valley renders 

 me a burden upon the community, while such 

 a jaunt seemed merely to start Joe's circula- 

 tion. Day after day Fred and I tried to 

 follow him step by step, until we discovered 

 that each of his strides was four inches longer 

 than ours. We increased our revolutions, but 



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