14 INTRODUCTION. 



tremendous strength, that as he clasped the tree I thought 

 he would break its trunk in twain. How he growled and 

 glared ! But I felt comparatively safe ; and with a mali- 

 cious coolness, I pulled out my revolver, and shot ball 

 after ball into the vital parts of the bear, who at length, 

 after 'receiving the ust ball in his side, fell over and 

 yielded his breath. 



"An admirable exploit!" the inexperienced reader 

 would, perchance, exclaim. But as a practised hand with 

 the rifle and revolver, among the crags of the Rocky 

 Mountains, I could not consider it as such. My father 

 old Peregrine Herne may he have reached the happy 

 hunting-grounds ! would have snapped his fingers at the 

 achievement, and I who was ambitious of " treading in 

 the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor" merely 

 judged that I had done pretty well. I was then about 

 twenty-five years of age. Up to my twentieth year I 

 had resided in St. Louis, with my mother, more attentive 

 to books than mountain and prairie sports. My mother 

 died, and I then joined my father, who was the most 

 restless of men in his hunting expeditions in the far 

 west. Five years of such a life had given me the expe- 

 rience necessarv to make a hardy mountaineer and a 

 successful hunter. Having killed many a bear, and 

 made many a narrow escape from death, it couid not be 

 expected that the destruction of the animal mentioned 



