260 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



ing it was possible to trail her but a short distance in the 

 alder thickets, but she was followed far enough to deter- 

 mine the fact that the bullet had passed from the point 

 of the right shoulder backward through the left lung and 

 had come out of the left side, for the brush was marked 

 on the left side with abundant lung blood. Some two 

 or three days later, Ed Crawford, Elting's packer, cut 

 the trail of the three cubs going back alone in the direc- 

 tion from which they had come, which was suflScient 

 proof that the mother had succumbed. 



The explanation of this rather unusual experience, in 

 the opinion of Elting and Ben, was the fact that for about 

 ten days prior to this incident the weather had been 

 very cold and all of the streams in the vicinity had 

 frozen so that it had become impossible for the bears to 

 fish. The mother and cubs, becoming hungry, had then 

 started for the moose coimtrj'" to secure some food. It 

 is a well known fact that brown bear, when hunting for 

 meat, are very apt to select the early morning or the 

 late evening. On this occasion the bear imdoubtedly 

 saw Ben and Elting on top of the neighboring ridge and 

 saw them leave this ridge along the moose trail. Depos- 

 iting her cubs in a thicket on top of the lower ridge, she 

 went down the trail about seventy yards to meet them, 

 and instead of waiting for them in the trail, stood up in 

 the alders about six feet from the trail. Elting was con- 

 vinced that she did not recognize the difference between 

 human and moose meat, but was simply hungry and 

 wanted them for supper. Except for the fact that they 

 left the moose trail, that Ben happened to look around 

 and see her as he did, and the further fact that Elting 

 smashed her shoulder with a relatively large caliber 

 bullet, the Doctor felt certain that one and possibly both 



