108 IN THE BIG MORN MOUNTAINS. 



they were scarcely recognizable, and passed out, breaking two 

 ribs on the side where it went in and three where it came 

 out. He did not run more than a hundred yards, and this 

 was the only shot that hit him. A forty caliber that will 

 break a grizzly up like that is slick enough for me ; brother 

 Van Dyke's opinion to the contrary, notwithstanding. 



We made camp in the edge of the timber near by, and 

 after dinner Huffman made several good views of the critter. 

 Then we skinned him, and now when I step out of bed these 

 cold winter mornings, instead of landing with my bare feet 

 on the bare floor as other newspaper men have to do, I step 

 proudly on the soft warm skin of that bear. In other words, 

 the bear skin keeps my bare feet off the bare floor. It is 

 barely possible that some of my readers may see this thread- 

 bare pun. If I thought they would bear more of this sort of 

 stuff, I would prolong the discussion, but I forbear. 



The old fellow was very fat. I took a large quantity of 

 the fat and fried it out in our frying pan by the camp-fire 

 that night. I brought home a canteen full of it, and it fits 

 my rifle first-rate. 



The snow had all disappeared from this plateau, and we 

 had difficulty in finding enough in the timber for the stock 

 and for cooking purposes that night there being no water 

 in the vicinity. We spent the next day in winding among 

 the canyons of this locality, trying to find a trail by which 

 we could get out and down into the Big Horn valley, but no 

 sooner did we cross one of these terrible chasms, each of 

 which was from a thousand to three thousand feet deep, than 

 we found our way impeded by another. 



We had crossed one of them and was toiling up the oppo- 

 site wall of it, picking our way over rocks and among crags, 

 where you would not suppose, to look at it, that a dog could 

 go in safety, when we met with what might have proved a 



