TWENTY-ONE GRIZZLIES IN Si CUT. 



21 



day or the next. When she did we heard 

 of it, for no sooner did she miss her pups 

 than she raised a howl, assisted apparently 

 by all the wolves in the country, that made 

 the hills ring. We tried to raise the kid- 

 napped babies, feeding- them condensed 

 milk. Two died in a few days and the 

 others lived but 2 weeks. 



A day or so after moving camp we start- 

 ed out to round up soma bears. Two miles 

 back on the trail we came to a slide clear 

 of snow and already green with grass. A 

 half mile up the slide was an open space 

 which we thought it well to investigate. 

 We entered the gulch, through which ran 

 a little stream, and climbed up. At the 

 edge of the clearing I stopped and looked 

 over the ground. Not 100 feet away stood 

 the prettiest old grizzly I have ever seen. 

 His head and shoulders were tawny ; back 

 of them he was white as snow. He was 

 not eating, neither did he appear alarmed, 

 but had altogether the air of a portly old 

 gentleman looking over property with an 

 eye to making a bid. 



Without looking around I motioned for 

 Coleman, and when he did not respond I 

 turned and saw him some distance to the 

 rear. Not until I made frantic gestures 

 could I attract his attention. When, at 

 last, he reached me the bear had vanished, 

 having undoubtedly winded us. We fol- 

 lowed him a mile or more ; then as he kept 

 persistently in thick brush, we gave it 

 up. 



Across the creek from camp was a high 

 mountain with 3 large slides on the side 

 facing us. Those we watched with glasses 

 and there we saw our next bear. He was 

 another overgrown old fellow, white all 

 over. He appeared on a little lawn half a 

 mile up the hill. Below him was a cliff 

 some 500 feet high, which we would have 

 to round in order to reach him. As it 

 was late we decided to wait until morning 

 and then go up and lay for him. It took 

 us 3 hours to reach the place where we 

 had seen him, and the ground was so steep 

 and the brush so thick that we did not 

 think it worth while to wait. Often after 

 that we saw the old fellow from camp, 

 but did not attempt another campaign 

 against him. 



By that time the snow was going in 

 earnest, slides were frequent, and we con- 

 fidently expected some real bear hunting. 

 Every old slide contained one or more 

 bears, some white, some brown, some half- 

 and-half. We climbed hills, cut trails, 

 felled foot-logs across creeks ; but the bears 

 still stuck to the side hills, ate /rass, dug 

 bulbs and minded us not at all. It would 

 take us so long to get where we saw a 

 'bear that there was no chance for us. 

 With a pack of dogs we could have cor- 

 nered many. After goose-chasing those 



grizzlies 2 weeks we hung up our things, 

 tied the tent door and walked 17 miles 

 back to the lake. A man lived there who 

 claimed to have killed many bears on our 

 creek, and we asked him if there was any 

 patented way of doing it. He said we 

 should have baited them and then watched 

 the bait. We had thought of doing that, 

 but it seemed like taking an unfair ad- 

 vantage. However, Mr. Coleman wanted 

 a bear and at last said he did not care how 

 he got it. 



We went on a few miles and found a 

 man who had an old horse sick with the 

 heaves. He was going to kill the poor 

 beast to get rid of it, until he found there 

 was a market for bear bait. There was 

 an instant rally in equine values, but ws 

 finally closed a deal at $20 and started 

 campward, leading our bait. Our progress 

 was slow. About every 100 yards we had 

 to stop 10 minutes while the old horse re- 

 covered his wind and composure. When 

 we finally reached camp with our prize we 

 felt that he fully deserved the death pen- 

 alty. 



A few miles above camp was a branch 

 stream coming from a range of high, rough 

 hills to the Eastward. There was no bot- 

 tom land along it, the mountains running 

 down to its very bank. There were slides 

 along this creek half a mile wide at the base 

 and extending far back into the mountains. 

 There, we thought, would be the place for 

 our bait, as bears could hardly miss it. We 

 assisted the old horse to the first slide, 

 roped him over the creek and killed him 

 in a little open place near a cedar thicket. 

 Across the creek, about J$ yards away, we 

 built a blind, and cut every bush that could 

 intercept our view of the bait. The blind 

 was so arranged that we could approach it 

 unseen. 



We cut off the horse's head and dragged 

 it a mile up stream to an old deadfall. 

 Coleman was getting desperate and bound 

 to have a bear one way or another. We 

 fixed up the old trap, piling logs as big 

 as we could lift around it to make sure 

 bruin could not get the bait without being 

 pinched. 



Within 3 days a bear had found it. 

 That we discovered one morning and the 

 same afternoon we watched the bait from 

 the blind. Next morning we again 

 watched, returning to camp at 11. Com- 

 ing back at 2 we found the bait gone. We 

 had never seen bears around "in midday; 

 always before 11 or after 2. This fellow 

 was the evident exception to the rule. 



We found he had moved the bait to one 

 side out of sight of the blind, eaten a hearty 

 dinner and departed. Getting ropes we 

 hauled the remains back and watched until 

 dark. Next morning we were at the stand 

 by daybreak. There had been nothing 



