102 THE VIARD OR WIYOT. 
catch deer or elk they constructed two long lines of brush-wood fence, so 
slight as not to arouse the animals’ suspicions, or simply tied single strips of 
bark from tree to tree in a continuous string, the two lines gradually con- 
verging until they compelled the elk to pass through a narrow chute. At 
this point they placed a pole in such a manner that the animal was obliged 
to let down his horns to pass underneath, and thus he inserted his head into 
the noose. This was made of grass or fibrous roots, twisted in a rope as 
large as a man’s arm, and was attached to a pole in such a fashion that 
the elk dragged it down, whereupon it speedily became entangled in the 
contiguous bushes and anchored him fast. 
Sometimes, to their great dismay, they snared “Old Ephraim,” instead 
of an elk or a deer. Among the earliest colonists in the vicinity of Hum- 
boldt Bay was Seth Kinman, who relates the following incident: One day 
an Indian came running to his cabin with all his might, desperately blown 
after a hard six-mile stretch, and so cut in his wind that he could not divulge 
the matter of his business for a considerable space of time. Panting and 
puffing, and in a drip of perspiration as if he had just emerged from the 
sweat-house, he made out to reveal his errand by pantomime some time 
before he recovered his wind. Kinman quickly caught down his rifle 
and .they ran back together. Arrived on the spot he found an enormous 
erizzly bear snared in the noose, frantic with rage, roaring, lunging 
about, dragging down bushes and saplings with the pole, and throwing 
himself headlong when suddenly brought up by some tree. The Indian 
would not venture within rods of him. NKinman slowly approached and 
waited for the mighty beast to become a little pacified. He waited not 
long though, lest the rope might chafe off, and presently drew up and sent 
a bullet singing into his brain. The great brute fell, quivered, then lay 
quiet. But it was only when Kinman approached and stamped on his head 
with his heel that the cowardly Indians were assured; and then from all 
the forest round about there went up a multitudinous shout. From a score 
of trees they scrambled down in all haste. Not more than a dozen had 
been in sight when Kinman arrived on the ground, but now scores col- 
lected in a few minutes, gazing upon the enormous brute with owl-eyed 
wonder, not unmixed with terror. 
