XV 

 A SPRING-GUN AVOIDED 



THE grizzly bear far excels in cunning any other ani- 

 mal found throughout the Rocky Mountains, and 

 indeed, for that matter, he far excels them all combined. 

 I have seen many and various examples of his shrewdness, 

 but never, perhaps, a more striking instance than one 

 which took place while I was hunting with a party in the 

 Bitter Roots. We had been trying to catch a grizzly alive, 

 and had been using for the purpose a bear trap with ropes 

 stuffed into the corners of the jaws, so that these would 

 only come together far enough to hold the bear's foot with- 

 out inflicting an injury. 



We were camped on a large branch of the Clearwater 

 River, and one of the party having killed an elk, we 

 dressed it and carried the trimmings to a point about a mile 

 from camp. Here we had built a pen of logs and in this 

 we planned to set the trap, attached to a light log so that 

 the bear would not pull his foot out in his struggles to get 

 free. On the second day I went to examine the trap and 

 found the pen demolished, the bait taken out, and every- 

 thing that was movable piled on top of the trap. Fifty feet 

 away I saw a large pile of moss and leaves scraped together 

 and beside it a bed, where the bear had been lying. I 



kicked open the mass of leaves and found the remains of 



138 



