Hunting the Grisly. 297 



free of the buffalo robe, coated with hoar-frost. The ashes 

 of the fire were lifeless ; in the dim morning the air was 

 bitter cold. I did not linger a moment, but snatched up 

 my rifle, pulled on my fur cap and gloves, and strode off 

 up a side ravine ; as I walked I ate some mouthfuls of 

 venison, left over from supper. 



Two hours of toil up the steep mountain brought me 

 to the top of a spur. The sun had risen, but was hidden 

 behind a bank of sullen clouds. On the divide I halted, 

 and gazed out over a vast landscape, inconceivably wild 

 and dismal. Around me towered the stupendous moun- 

 tain masses which make up the backbone of the Rockies. 

 From my feet, as far as I could see, stretched a rugged 

 and barren chaos of ridges and detached rock masses. 

 Behind me, far below, the stream wound like a silver ribbon, 

 fringed with dark conifers and the changing, dying foliage 

 of poplar and quaking aspen. In front the bottoms of the 

 valleys were filled with the sombre evergreen forest, dotted 

 here and there with black, ice-skimmed tarns ; and the 

 dark spruces clustered also in the higher gorges, and were 

 scattered thinly along the mountain sides. The snow 

 which had fallen lay in drifts and streaks, while, where the 

 wind had scope it was blown off, and the ground left bare. 



For two hours I walked onwards across the ridges 

 and valleys. Then among some scattered spruces, where 

 the snow lay to the depth of half a foot, I suddenly came 

 on the fresh, broad trail of a grisly. The brute was evi- 

 dently roaming restlessly about in search of a winter den, 

 but willing, in passing, to pick up any food that lay handy. 

 At once I took the trail, travelling above and to one 



