100 IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 



the crest of it, which brought me within about a hundred and 

 fifty yards of him. Here I leveled my rifle at him and 

 turned her loose. At the report he sprang into the air, made 

 two or three convulsive bounds, and fell dead. 



In a moment I was at his side and my knife was hissing 

 through his hide. I threw him out of it in short order, cut 

 a favorite roast from his loin, and started for camp. At the 

 creek which flows through this canyon I stopped and took a 

 drink in honor of the event from the cold crystal fluid that 

 comes fresh from the snow. I looked at my watch, and found 

 that it had been seven and a half hours from the time I struck 

 the trail of the deer in the morning until I killed it. As I 

 had made a good three-mile gate all the time, I must have 

 ran him something over twenty miles. 



As I passed up the canyon on my return to camp I again 

 came upon the trail of the bear and her two cubs, and here it 

 was fresh. They had been feeding on the choke-cherries 

 that grow here in abundance, and had passed over this spot 

 not twenty minutes before me. It was now the middle of the 

 afternoon and 1 should have to hurry to reach camp before 

 dark, but here was a temptation I could not resist. I had 

 rather camp in the canyon alone to-night than miss this 

 opportunity of corralling three bears in a bunch ; so I took up 

 their trail and followed it. In a few minutes I heard the cubs 

 calling to their mother^ making a noise something like the 

 squealing of a pig. I r "'ild also hear the mother grunt and 

 growl at them in reply. They were not over a hundred yards 

 from me, but the brush was so thick in this locality that I 

 could not see a tenth of that distance in any direction. 



I dropped the trail and started for the noise, which the 

 cubs kept up nearly all the time. I crawled through thickets 

 on my hands and knees and climbed over great masses of 

 broken and disordered rocks, until I found myself within 



