252 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



but found the ascent very difficult. The slope became 

 so steep and precipitous that I could scarcely climb 

 and keep my footing, and had to assist myself by 

 leaning forward and using my left hand, while the 

 rifle remained, uncocked, in my right. I could not 

 risk the noise of using the butt as a staff. The space 

 within which the bear must be lying was not two 

 hundred feet wide, and it became intensely exciting to 

 work upward under such disadvantages, expecting at 

 any instant to see her rise up. Besides, the fact that 

 she had a cub with her made me feel somewhat un- 

 certain of her temper. 



Step by step I ascended over the wet grass and 

 moss as noiselessly as possible, stooping every few 

 feet to take breath, until at last I reached a point 

 twenty feet below the snow-line. Suddenly, coming 1 up 

 from a bunch of low, stunted spruce to my right, on a 

 slope so steep that it seemed almost perpendicular, 

 and not a hundred feet away, I heard a low, moaning 

 sound. I could see nothing, but cocked my rifle, and 

 with the greatest caution crept slowly upward a few 

 feet, then carefully lifting my head, I saw the cub 

 pushing its head into the body of its mother. 1'he 

 mother, stretched at length in a slight depression among 

 the spruces, was indistinctly visible, and I saw that her 

 left forefoot was raised. The cub was nursing. It 

 seemed excited with hunger, and moved its head about 

 in a mild frenzy, all the time bawling in a low, strange 

 tone. 



The ground was so steep and so slippery, because 

 of melting snow, that I was lying: on my left side, 

 holding on as I could with my left hand, while my 

 feet could hardly get enough support to keep me from 



