ROCKIES IN SEPTEMBER 127 



these pine forests?" I asked. "It's all what a man's 

 used to, I reckon, Cap'n. I mind the night I carried a 

 i^reen b'arskin six mile, through worse timber than this, 

 :ind never a trail and never a moon. Are you ever 

 carried a green b'arskin ? " I confessed I hadn't, and 

 awaited the rest. " Wal, it come about this way. Me 

 and young Sykes was camped on the north fork of Grass- 

 hopper Creek, in the fall of '85. No, I disremembered, 

 'twere the fall of '86, when b'arskins was low and I 

 trapped six in one month. I come round by a trap late, 

 just casual like, on the way to camp. There was as 

 big a black b'ar as ever you laid eyes on caught by one 

 hind foot. ' I ain't going to take no chances with you,' 

 1 says, for I've knowed a sight of accidents through fooling 

 with a b'ar just snicked in a trap. So I stands off and 

 pumps lead into his head till he were settled, and then I 

 sets to and skins him. It were eight o'clock before I had 

 done, and there warn't no m.oon. Wal, this here b'ar 

 was as big as a steer, but I packed his hide on my back 

 for six mile afoot, through rough fallen timber thicker nor 

 this. And thinks I to myself, coffee and bacon and a bit 

 of b'ar's grease (that I had brought along) won't be so 

 bad when I gets in. Bailed if the camp warn't empty ! 

 And it were two o'clock afore I had lit fire and cooked 

 biscuit — when in comes my pardner, as customary as 

 could be. I never did have a meal cooked but he come 

 in just five minutes after. I made sure he'd 'a been there 

 that night. Now he'd got a story he'd been trying to 

 catch an elk calf ; the mother wouldn't lie down, and he 

 got cold and concluded to leave them. But he said he 

 were 'nation glad I had cooked the victuals." 



Anybody who knows the difficulties of riding or 

 walking through a pine forest will appreciate Jim's 

 trouble in the dark, and understand his chagrin at finding a 

 supperless camp. Believe me, a wolf or lynx has no more 

 power to see his way in the dark than an old trapper ! 



Another of Jim's bear stories. Perhaps I may recall 

 some more of them by-and-by ; but for the present this 

 little adventure will suffice. During one of his trapping 

 expeditions Jim chanced to be looking round for a grouse 



