88 The Grizzly Bear 



pups, one of which he claimed was a bear-dog. It was 

 a regular Indian dog of about five or six colors, and proved 

 one of the best bear fighters I have ever seen. The other 

 was a cross between a brindle bull and a staghound, and, 

 while he had never hunted any, he could whip anything, 

 aside from a bear, that he came across. 



For a hundred and fifty miles our way lay across the 

 Palouse farming country. We then crossed the main fork 

 of the North Clearwater River and struck into the Bitter 

 Root range from the west. Nothing of interest occurred 

 until we struck the hills, when Jack's hound jumped 

 a deer, and I suppose he is still after it, as he never re- 

 turned. 



We soon, now, began to see bear tracks, and in order 

 to give the Eastern bear-dog all the chances there were, 

 Jack thought it better not to let my curs loose until his 

 dog had brought the bears to bay. When we showed 

 Nebo a bear track he would grow vastly excited, disap- 

 pear up the trail, and after a few minutes we would hear 

 him barking. But when we reached him we always found 

 that he had treed, not bears, but "fool hens" — a species 

 of grouse. And for two months we followed that dog up- 

 hill and down, and not a bear did he tree. However, we 

 killed a number of black bears without his assistance. 



One evening after a hard day's climb over mountains 

 where there was no trail, we camped on the west side of 

 a bottom, some hundreds of yards from the large stream 

 that ran through it. The bottom contained several hun- 

 dred acres covered with high grass and willow bushes, 

 and as we got into camp early I took my gun, after un- 

 packing, and went up the stream to hunt for a way out. 



