236 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



forest frays out with dwarfed and storm- 

 battered trees. Above this the summit of the 

 Rockies spreads out under the very sky into 

 a moorland a grassy Arctic prairie. Here, 

 in places, big snowdrifts lie throughout the 

 summer. To these timberline drifts, when 

 fringed with flowers, the mother and the cubs 

 sometimes came. The stains of their tracks 

 upon the snow showed that the cubs sometimes 

 rolled and scampered over the wasting drifts. 

 They often waded in beaver ponds, swam in the 

 clear lakes, played along the summit of ridges 

 while the mother was making a living; and they 

 often paused, too, listening to the sounds of the 

 winds and waters in the canons or looking down 

 into the open meadows far below. 



Stories of this large, handsome, nearly white 

 Echo Mountain grizzly reached trappers more 

 than one hundred miles away. During the 

 several years through which I kept track of her 

 a number of trappers tried for the bear, each 

 with his own peculiar devices. They quickly 

 gave it up, for in each case the bear early dis- 

 covered the trap came close to it and then 

 avoided it. 



But finally an experienced old trapper went 

 into her territory and announced in advance 

 his determination to stay until he got the Echo 

 Mountain grizzly. He set a steel trap in the 



