HUNTING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 



in the vicinity of camp. On each tracking-snow which fell we 

 were able to pick up a fresh bear-trail near camp, only to follow 

 it down into the thick timber of the slopes of the plateau until 

 the snow failed us. 



Caribou wandered up from this lower country several times, 

 and we frequently saw blacktail, out of whose number I shot 

 a doe, two spike-horns, and an old buck in order to keep the 

 camp supplied with meat. About the ist of October, dis- 

 couraged in the pursuit of bear, we decided to spend the last 

 few days of the hunt in the chase of mountain caribou in the 

 thick timber on the. slopes below us. Late one afternoon we 

 drove the pack-horses down into a wide burnt valley near the 

 edge of the plateau, and camped by a small creek which me- 

 andered through country covered with a maze of whitened 

 tree- trunks. 



Early the next morning Dell started down in the thick timber 

 to locate caribou, and as we were badly in need of fresh meat 

 I headed for a burnt knob in the distance, in hopes of finding 

 deer. However, the top of this hill was covered with crusted 

 snow, and I only had glimpses of a band of does, alarmed by 

 my noisy approach along a slippery slope. Late in the after- 

 noon, when within a quarter of a mile of the tent, I saw a large 

 doe walking through the burnt timber one hundred yards 

 ahead. Waiting until it stopped, exposing a gray side mo- 

 mentarily between two whitened tree-trunks, I fired, solving the 

 meat question by dropping it in its tracks, shot through the 

 heart. 



On reaching the tent I found Alphonse in a very agitated 

 frame of mind. A few moments before my arrival, while re- 

 turning to camp with a string of grouse which he had secured 

 with the .22 caliber Winchester he carried, he had met a large 

 grizzly face to face within a short distance of the tent. The 

 bear had risen on its haunches and stared at the startled cook 

 for several moments, and then, to judge by the tracks, both 



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