298 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
approaching the boat we met Mr. Sprague, wha 
informed us that he thought he had seen a grizzly 
bear walking along the upper bank of the river, 
-and we went towards the spot as fast as possi»le 
Meantime the bear had gone down to the water, 
and was clumsily and slowly proceeding on its 
way. It was oniy a few paces from and below 
us, and was seen by our whole party at the same 
instant. We all fired, and the animal dropped 
dead without even the power of uttering a groan. 
Mr. Culbertson put a rifle ball through its neck, 
Bell placed two large balls in its side, and our 
bullet entered its belly. After shooting the 
bear we proceeded to a village of ‘ prairie dogs,’ 
and set traps in hopes of catching some of them. 
We were inclined to think they had all left, but 
Mr. Bell seeing two, shot them. There were 
thousands of their burrows in sight. Our ‘ pat- 
roon,’ assisted by one of the men, skinned the 
bear, which weighed, as we thought, about four 
hundred pounds. . It appeared to be between 
four and five years old, and was a male. Its 
lard was rendered, and filled sundry bottles with 
‘real bear’s grease,’ whilst we had the skin pre- 
served by our accomplished taxidermist, Mr. 
Bell.” 
The following afternoon, as we were descend- 
ing the stream, we saw another grizzly bear, 
somewhat smaller than the one mentioned above, 
