1 62 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



way in which they shouted them out, soon aroused most of 

 the dwellers in Sand Point, 



As usual, there were plenty of reports Hying around 

 about bears having been killed which measured 12 or 13 feet 

 from nose to tail, and as usual we tried without success to 

 see even a genuine unstretched skin of these dimensions. 

 It was reported to me that Mr. A. J. Stone had passed 

 through Sand Point a few weeks previously with the skin 

 and skull of a bear which had weighed 1600 lbs. I felt 

 rather ashamed of my big one after this, and I was sure that 

 if such a well-known collector as Mr. Stone had said his bear 

 weighed 1600 lbs. he had weighed it carefully. In a subse- 

 quent conversation with Mr. Stone he admitted that he had 

 only estimated this bear's weight, and when we finally com- 

 pared notes and measured the two skulls of our respective 

 big bears, I was quite satisfied to find that my skull, although 

 the same length as Mr. Stone's, was some three-quarters 

 of an inch wider, and considerably larger in circumference. 

 Also, by careful measurements of the bodies, my bear was 

 proved to be some 4j- inches the longer from nose to tail. 

 It does not by any means follow that the other bear might 

 not have been the heavier, but to suggest the idea that there 

 was a difference of nearly 600 lbs. between the two is asking 

 me to swallow too much. 



It was not long before we ran up against a local liar who, 

 hearing about the visit of some English greenhorns on a 

 shooting expedition, thought he might do some good 

 business. One evening in the store he approached me and 

 said, " Look here, I guess you reckon that bear's skin of 

 yours hanging out to dry is a big one ? " I replied meekly 

 that, in our opinion, it was fairly good. He then stated that 

 in the spring he had killed a bear which was more than half 



