The Kadiak Bear and his Home 



limbs, where they could watch, and I stood in deep 

 grass, some six or eight feet from a well-traveled 

 path used by the bear in fishing the stream. The 

 magpies were calling all about, and seemed to be 

 saying, Midtvit, midwit, Aleut for bear. The air 

 was dead calm. Hardly were the men on their 

 perches, before they saw a bear walk into the brush 

 on one side of the valley. We waited quietly, in 

 the midst of mosquitoes, but nothing came in sight. 

 It was already after 10 o'clock, and so dark that 

 the men gave up their watch, and came down to 

 join me. Suddenly we heard a sharp screech up 

 the stream, and when it was repeated, Vacille said 

 it must be a young bear crying because its mother 

 would not feed it fast enough. Here Vacille did 

 some good work. 



We walked rapidly up stream, through the thick 

 brush, and before we had gone 100 yards heard a 

 large animal, just ahead, moving about in the 

 brush, and making a good deal of noise. I started 

 ahead to get a view, thinking we had disturbed the 

 bear, but Vacille held me back. We walked on 

 noiselessly to a little bare point in the stream, and 

 just then the bear appeared, bent on fishing, thirty 

 feet away. She lumbered down into the stream, 

 and when I fired fell into the water, the ball just 

 missing her shoulder. She was up again, and this 



267 



