216 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



killed some Porcupine and half -roasted them (under these 

 circumstances, I would have my readers remember that 

 Porcupine emit a powerful odor); and to these delectable 

 morsels we added parts of the Sheep. Still, it was a 

 poor bait. Bears will not, as a usual thing, come to a small 

 carcass. 



We waited and waited, day after day; all the Sheep 

 cleared out of the neighborhood, and we, not having at that 

 time one good hunter in the party, could not trail up any 

 of the small, scattered bands of Elk that kept, as they gen- 

 erally keep during the end of August, to the thick timber. 

 Our grub gave out; our last morning came; and, save for 

 that one brief moment, none of the party had ever seen a 

 Grizzly. All our impediments were stowed away, and 

 nothing remained to pack but the forty-two-pound traps. 

 While the final tightening of the mules' aparejos was being 

 done (we had a Government outfit on that trip), our guide 

 rode off to see if the luck had turned. He was to fire one 

 shot if the trap had been carried away. Fancy our feelings 

 when, thirty minutes later, a single shot rang out on the 

 early morning air. We made time to the ridge where the 

 boys had seen the Bears, and where the traps had been set 

 fruitlessly for a week; and there, sure enough, he was — a 

 fine fellow, too. He could not have been fast more than 

 half an hour, for he had not gone far, but was ' ' making 

 tracks," dragging a great log after him, when the hunter 

 saw him; and in an hour or two, at that pace, would have 

 been well on his way down the canon. Soon as mankind 

 came in sight, he took in the situation, and began to roar 

 and growl. A Grizzly' s roar can be heard a long way in 

 still weather. I must, in all truthfulness, say that that 

 Bear seemed to be thinking chiefly of his family. He made 

 no. charge; he wanted very badly to go home; and I ended 

 his career with an Express bullet. 



Not much sport in that, so it seems to me now. And yet, 

 after longing and longing even to see a big Bear, and never 

 seeing him; after finding, sometimes, the ground near our 

 camp all torn up over night, as we used to in 1868; after 



