ON WILD LIFE TRAILS 117 
The birds, chipmunks, and a squirrel were en- 
tertaining as ever, but I had hoped for something 
else. I had just started for camp when dimly 
through the trees I saw something coming down 
the trail. 
A dignified grizzly and a number of pompous, 
stiff-necked rams met and were so filled with 
curiosity that everyone forgot reserve and good 
form. They stopped and turned for looks at one 
another and thus merged a rude, serious affair 
into a slowly passing, successful meeting. 
I sometimes sat at a point on this ridge trail 
so that the passing animal was in silhouette. 
The background was a lone black spruce against 
the shifting sky scenery. Horns and whiskers, 
coats of many colours, and exhibits of leg action 
went by. Horned heads, short-arched necks, and 
held-in chins abundantly told of pride and pom- 
posity. But the character topography was in 
each back line. From nose tip to tail, plateau, 
cafion, hill, and slope stories stood against the sky. 
The tail, though last, was the character 
clue to the passing figure. Regardless of curve, 
kink, or incline, it ever was story revealing: 
sometimes long and flowing, but the short 
tail attitude incited most imaginative interest 
in the attached individual. 
From treetop I watched one trail where it 
was crossed by a stream. Generally deer and 
