A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



parties to the meeting had parted at equal speed in different 

 directions. Hearing my rifle-shot, Alphonse had imagined that 

 I had met the bear, but he had not quite yet made up his mind 

 to come to my assistance with the .45-. 70 Winchester which 

 usually laid around camp. Incidentally, after this encounter 

 with the grizzly, this rifle was Alphonse 's constant companion 

 day and night. 



When Dell arrived in camp he reported having found a coun- 

 try about eight miles down the slope which was tracked up by 

 many caribou. During the next morning we packed one horse 

 with a light camping outfit, led it down through the timber to 

 where we intended to hunt, unpacked it, and sent it back with 

 Alphonse to the camp in the valley above. It was nearly dusk 

 when Dell and I finished pitching our soiled lean-to tent on the 

 shore of a small, quiet, and unfrequented lake. This picturesque 

 sheet of water was surrounded by thick forests of spruce and 

 balsam, and its waters eventually reached the Columbia via 

 Kettle River. 



The country in which we hunted was decidedly marshy, cut 

 up by heavily wooded ridges, but composed mostly of barrens, 

 sluggish streams, and small lakes. It w^as intersected in all 

 directions by a network of deep caribou-trails, at present cut up 

 by many recently made tracks, and its echoes had never been 

 wakened by the rifle of prospector or hunter. As we finished 

 our evening meal of deer steaks and coffee, trout were breaking 

 the surface of the placid lake in every direction, a family of 

 muskrats was splashing in the sluggish creek that flowed by our 

 tent door, and a pair of fish-hawks were circling overhead in the 

 clear, blue sky. When I lay in my blankets that night, listening 

 to the crackling of the dying camp-fire and the distant hooting 

 of a great horned owl, the prospects of good sport in this country 

 seemed very promising. We had breakfast at daylight, but a 

 cold, clear night had frozen the water in the barrens and formed 

 a crust on what snow remained in the timber, which made 



274 



