NORTHERN GAME TRAILS 293 



words. After learning them we never spoke 

 while hunting or stalking. 



At a trot we crossed a wide bare space on the 

 mountainside, then dropped down into the green 

 timber (spruce). Here the stalk commenced in 

 dead earnest. It was a delight to see the catlike 

 manner with which the Indian slipped through 

 the woods, with the very craftiness of the prowl- 

 ing kindreds themselves. A half hour went by. 

 Then I got the sign to freeze ( which really would 

 not have been very hard to do in that low tem- 

 perature; in fact I thought my ears had already 

 obeyed the orders). We had come to a point 

 where a little scope of country could be viewed. 

 Then I glimpsed Mac showing his teeth, in 

 other words he was smiling, and by that I knew 

 the game was in sight and it looked good to him. 



To come to where he was, slow, low, and noise- 

 less, was indicated by a beckon and the turning 

 of his palm to me. He seemed to take it for 

 granted I was always watching him, for he never 

 even looked my way. There he was, nosing about 

 on a sparsely timbered knoll about two hundred 

 yards away, not a grizzly but a fine old robust 

 black bear. There was not enough cover to con- 

 tinue on in the same direction, so we dropped 

 back in the thick woods again and made another 



