100 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



walk oif with a cariboo as easily as a cat with a mouse. 

 Notwithstanding my first experience, I subsequently con- 

 vinced myself that they rarely attack men ; but they do 

 so on rare occasions, and it seems to me more from 

 caprice than driven to it by hunger. Yet they are always 

 uncertain-tempered animals. Those captured young, and 

 brought up by the colonists or hunters, become as 

 attached as dogs to their masters. In their native 

 haunts they are very active animals, and no person who 

 had watched them in the wilds would speak of a bear as 

 a " clumsy " animal. 



In the district where we were camping the bears 

 were unusually fine. Several were seen during our stay, 

 and two more were killed. One, measuring five feet 

 eii^ht inches, was killed by the whole party of us com- 

 bined, receiving no fewer than fourteen bullets, to the no 

 small detriment of the pelt. The other, just over six 

 feet in length, was killed with a single bullet in the head 

 by Achil, single-handed. This last was whitish about the 

 muzzle, and had some brownish patches about it. All 

 were males ; the females are quite a third smaller than 

 their lords. 



There were wolves here, and gluttons ; the first time 

 I had seen the latter animal ; and I thought that it might 

 be owing to the abundance of these animals that the deer 

 had forsaken the neighbourhood. We were soon at work 

 with the traps, and captured several wolves and a fox or 

 two, but no glutton was ever captured, though several 

 were shot. They seemed even more cunning and sus- 

 picious than the wolves, and even the latter appeared to 

 soon acquire a suspicion of the fate of their companions ; 

 for after the first week or two none ventured near the 

 traps, skilfully as we concealed them under moss and 

 leaves, or with a light layer of sand over them. 



Of the gluttons I shot two myself by lying in wait at 

 night, for these animals rarely show themselves during 

 daylight. They are among the fiercest and cruellest of 



