A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



As we followed the opposite rim of the canon we carefully 

 scanned the snow for fresh tracks. By the time we had reached 

 a spot approximately above where we had last seen the bear 

 on the previous day, we had crossed the trails of numerous 

 coyotes, a small cougar, and two mule-deer. Here we dis- 

 mounted, and one of the men and I started down into the canon 

 with the three couples of dogs, while Fuguet and the cook dis- 

 tributed themselves along its edge. After an hour of cautious 

 and dangerous descent, and when within several hundred yards 

 of the raging torrent of the creek, we discovered fresh bear- 

 tracks in the snow and unloosened the dogs. When these 

 animals struck the scent they disappeared over a ledge below, 

 giving tongue at every bound. For the following five minutes 

 we neither heard nor saw them. The watcher on the opposite 

 rim of the canon claimed that during this time they were hav- 

 ing a spirited fight with the bear in its den, only a few yards 

 below us. An intervening mass of bowlders prevented any 

 sounds of this combat reaching our ears, and the first intimation 

 we had of the struggle was when dogs and bear came swarm- 

 ing up on the ledge we were attempting to descend. The four 

 hounds were pulling and biting at the bear's sides and flanks, 

 little Trix was hanging to one hind leg, and Biggs had his jaws 

 locked in the fur covering its throat. 



To an accompaniment of snarls, growls, and barks the fight 

 went on among a heap of broken bowlders only a few feet distant 

 from where I was waiting a chance to kill the bear without 

 shooting any of the dogs. Suddenly the harassed animal rose 

 to its hind legs, grasped the bulldog with both fore-paws, pulled 

 him away from its throat and bit him through the head. At 

 this moment! raised the carbine, took a hurried sight at the 

 breast of the bear, and clicked the hammer on an empty cham- 

 ber. I then remembered that, before descending such dangerous 

 cliffs, I had extracted the cartridge usually carried in the cham- 

 ber. By the time I had thrown in a cartridge from the maga- 



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