A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



and auxiliary creeks, above which extended bowlder- strewn 

 slopes covered with a growth of bushes and stunted trees, end- 

 ing in rock-slides and a ragged, gray sky-line of peaks and 

 pinnacles. 



Shortly after luncheon, while riding over this broken coun- 

 try, Ed, who was ahead, suddenly motioned to back the horses 

 hurriedly into a near-by clump of stunted spruces. Dismounting 

 and peering through the branches in the direction in which he 

 was pointing, I made out, with some difficulty, the outline of 

 a dark -colored cinnamon bear among the bushes about four 

 hundred yards up the slope. By using my field-glasses I could 

 see that it was sitting on a flat bowlder in the midst of thick 

 bushes, which it drew toward it by the armful, and leisurely 

 fed indiscriminately on leaves, berries, and twigs. While we 

 .were looking it descended from the rock and slouched along 

 in our direction, being immediately lost to view in the dense 

 brush. We hurriedly climbed up to the edge of the thicket 

 and crouched among the bu.shes, waiting for it to again reveal 

 itself. 



The silence of expectation was becoming very intense when 

 Ed suddenly pointed to what he supposed was the bear, and in 

 a few excited whispers persuaded me to fire twice into what 

 afterward proved to be an upright rotten brown stump. 

 Alarmed by the reports of the Winchester, the bear, w^hich 

 evidently had been concealed in the bushes near the above- 

 mentioned stump, revealed itself as it rapidly climbed the 

 rock-slides higher up the slopes of the canon. At three hun- 

 dred yards it made a conspicuous but rapidly diminishing tar- 

 get, after which I sent my three remaining shots. Although it 

 was apparently going as strong as ever, I watched the depart- 

 ing bear with the glasses, and was surprised to see it, when fully 

 a quarter of a mile distant, suddenly collapse, and roll head 

 over heels, down the long slope toward the creek-bottom. 



We found it lodged in the bushes several hundred yards be- 



