HUNTING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 



that whole-souled manner in which only a bear can collapse 

 when fatally wounded. The cub started to circle above us, 

 and, securing a momentary glimpse of its back over a fallen tree- 

 trunk, I fired, and evidently creased it somewhere, for it scram- 

 bled up a windfall of logs and added its diminutive wail to the 

 bawling of its mother. At this point Wash hurriedly called m3^ 

 attention to the female, which, at the call of her young, had 

 wallowed into sight, and, with ears laid back and mane on end, 

 was struggling up the slope to its assistance. Another shot in 

 the shoulder rolled her over again, and as she floundered around 

 among the logs I fired once more, ending her struggles with 

 a bullet through the neck. Perched on a mass of crossed logs 

 forty yards distant the cub was still facing us, and the next 

 shot struck it in the chest, killing it instantly. 



The skin of the female, before stretching, measured a little 

 over seven feet. The cub was a very large one, owing to its 

 being the only one of the litter. Both bears had long fur which 

 was very light in color. Judging from the two females that 

 my friends secured on this trip, and a number of grizzlies which 

 we saw at varying distances, our observation in this country 

 was that the males were much darker in color than the females. 

 Wash and I put in a hard day's work skinning the two grizzlies 

 and getting a pack-horse through the brush to and from the 

 scene of the shooting, but had the satisfaction of a good meal 

 of fried cub steaks that night. 



During the next two days I was fortunate enough to shoot 

 three deer, which relieved us of the prospect of living on bear 

 meat, and enabled us to hunt this plateau for over a week longer. 

 During the remaining days which we watched this canon, we saw 

 six different grizzlies at long-range, but so difficult were they 

 to approach, owing to the density of the brush, that I only 

 succeeded in securing a long-distance chance at one of them. 

 In a fusillade of shots at three hundred yards, across the canon 

 I knocked a large male grizzly down twice, but after following 



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