Bear Traits 



it dashed a fine horizontal spray into our faces 

 from the storm that still overhung the great 

 glacier seven or eight miles distant. The bait 

 was further than we had counted, and when 

 Fox finally slid from his horse, the sun had 

 already dropped into the cloudbank at the 

 valley's head. Picketing the ponies, we ran 

 down to an open knoll, which Fox said was the 

 watch point. From its foot a dry brook-bed 

 ran down through a sparse half-burnt second 

 growth of woods to a little meadow, which 

 could only be partly seen, some three hundred 

 yards away. " The bait lies in that meadow," 

 said Fox, " near that large bush." 



I studied it carefully through my field glass. 

 The light in the meadow was already rather 

 dim, and the bushes looked gray, but I could 

 see nothing that looked like a bear. I could 

 not, however, even clearly distinguish the bait. 

 Fox took the glass. " There's nothing there," 

 he said. " Let's go down, and see how you 

 fastened it, anyway," I proposed, A goat's 

 carcass being so small, Fox had tied it to a 

 log to prevent it from being dragged bodily 

 away. 



Fox led the way down the dry brook-bed. 

 It was five or six feet deep, and made capital 



253 



