114 BEARS. 



along a lower ledge and feeding. It struck me I had been very successful, 

 for I had resisted my man's advice to turn into the valley some 500ft. 

 higher up, pointing out that I had spotted a rock from above as being at 

 about the right level to meet the bear if he continued to travel the same 

 route. 



Poor Bruin did not heed me, and was utterly unconscious of danger. I 

 lightly stepped two paces to get behind a small arbutus on the edge of my 

 platform, slipped two cartridges into the rifle, and then turned towards 

 him. It may seem I ought to have been loaded before, but the ground 

 was so dangerous that I could trust neither my man nor myself with a 

 loaded weapon, and from habit the loading was carried on without any 

 noise whatever. I looked over again, and found he was feeding and 

 moving on, so waited until he was passing inside another small shrub. If 

 I could kill him there I thought his body would be arrested and saved the 

 fall down into the old snow and torrent some 600ft. below. I aimed 

 between and behind the shoulders ; he dropped stone dead, but, as the 

 muscles relaxed, he slipped off the narrow ledge and went rolling down 

 into the stream. My man had remained like a rock, leaning back against 

 the cliff in a most awkward position, from the time he heard the stone 

 moved until I fired. I was too done to attempt to retrieve the skin that 

 evening, so ordered camp to be pitched on a small plateau near by, and 

 lay down there till morning. My men were up early, and we descended 

 to the stream, skinned a large and well-coated very brown bear, with a 

 small open wound in the right forearm, and then clambered down and 

 home to camp, where I was laid up some days. 



On one occasion I had a most tremendous fag after a fine bear which 

 I did not secure, and it was such a curious case that I shall add it. 



My camp was pitched at the end of a narrow valley, under the shade 

 of steep mountains, with a view of limited width at the face of the ground 

 on the other side of the mighty torrent which flowed past its mouth. 

 One of the men came in to say a bear was feeding on a landslip on the 

 other bank ; I went down to the valley's mouth, some hundred yards, and 

 could see Bruin quite plainly, but he was over 300 yards away. He 

 was a good one, with a long, light-coloured coat, but the distance was too 

 great, the river impassible, and the nearest means of crossing was a 

 " Julie," or suspension bridge made of plaited sticks, two miles away, only 

 traversable by hardy mountaineers and eager hunters. To it we went 

 as fast as we could travel along the mere scratch of a track, which nearly 

 proved fatal to me, for one of the three small poles across a cleft (on 

 which some flat stones made a path) snapped under my foot, and I fell 

 through, but luckily jammed with my knee against the next pole and my 

 side to the rocks; had my knee missed I might have slipped down into 

 the river in a brace of shakes, and from it there was no hope of return. 

 My two villagers grasped my hand and hauled me up, but I was a good 

 deal shaken, and had to rest a bit. At last we reached the Julie and 

 crossed with much care, for it was a mere skeleton of a thing, made 



