236 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
forest frays out with dwarfed and storm- 
battered trees. Above this the summit of the 
Rockies spreads out under the very sky into 
a moorland—a grassy Arctic prairie. Here, 
in places, big snowdrifts lie throughout the 
summer. To these timberline drifts, when 
fringed with flowers, the mother and the cubs 
sometimes came. The stains of their tracks 
upon the snow showed that the cubs sometimes 
rolled and scampered over the wasting drifts. 
They often waded in beaver ponds, swam in the 
clear lakes, played along the summit of ridges 
while the mother was making a living; and they 
often paused, too, listening to the sounds of the 
winds and waters in the cafions or looking down 
into the open meadows far below. 
Stories of this large, handsome, nearly white 
Echo Mountain grizzly reached trappers more 
than one hundred miles away. During the 
several years through which I kept track of her 
a number of trappers tried for the bear, each 
with his own peculiar devices. They quickly 
gave it up, for in each case the bear early dis- 
covered the trap—came close to it and then 
avoided it. 
But finally an experienced old trapper went 
into her territory and announced in advance 
his determination to stay until he got the Echo 
Mountain grizzly. He set a steel trap in the 
