416 



RECREATION. 



silvertip in his trap. He took it down 

 to Canon to show Bill and the rest of 

 the boys. 



The sight of that fine bear hide set 

 Bill's hunting blood in motion. From 

 that time on, as regularly as fall 

 came, that spotted Indian pony and 

 the brindle bulldog with a spike col- 

 lar would be seen at some of the 

 ranches around Burroughs' or Pon- 

 cha mountains. Every time I saw 

 the dog it made me ache to show him 

 a thing or 2. I wanted a chance to 

 prove that old Mose was not made of 

 the same stuff they build coyotes of ; 

 and that if he ever braced up to me 

 as he did around wolves and coyotes 

 in a steel trap, I would teach an old 

 dog new tricks and send him to the 

 canine paradise over the bear-paw trail. 



I had to calm myself, however, for 

 Tiger always kept close to his mas- 

 ter's heels ; and I noticed, too, that 

 the boys did not hunt alone, any 

 more. They said they did not mind 

 common black bears, but that when 

 it came to old Mose and his country, 

 company was not a bad thing to have 

 along. 



Troubles do not come singly in 

 bear life any more than they do in 

 human life. We faced a new danger ; 

 the new smokeless rifle ! The old 

 black powder guns were not so bad. 

 Every time one of them went off it 

 made a noise equal to a clap of thun- 

 der, and smoke enough for an or- 

 dinary storm cloud. We knew for 

 miles around just where the shot 

 came from and what to do ; but when 

 the Savage and the 30-30 started to 

 do business it was "a wildcat with a 

 different kind of tail." Just a little 

 pop, like that of a tenderfoot's 22, and 

 a little puff of smoke we could not 

 tell from that of a cowboy's cigarette ; 

 but the work it did was a fright ! I 

 found a deer that had been shot with 

 a Savage, and it was terrible. It has 

 made me feel uneasy ever since. 



The first time I ever heard of 

 smokeless rifles was the year I had 

 my closest call. We had been staying 



a few days at the head of Joe Hall's 

 guich, holding a kind of camp meet- 

 ing in the rose-bulb patch on this side 

 of Poncha. Our feed was good there, 

 so we had given the cattle a rest and 

 thought the men had given up hunt- 

 ing us ; but no ! One evening, late in 

 the fall, along came that dodgasted 

 little spotted Indian pony and another 

 bronk, with the open box brand, 

 from over on Wilson creek. That 

 meant Whort. They asked Sid if 

 there were any bears up the gulch. 

 Sid said, 



"Yes, you bet there are. Old Mose 

 ran me out of there last spring, and I 

 haven't been back since. Didn't 

 have anything but my old '76 Win- 

 chester, and concluded I hadn't lost 

 any b'ar. You can have 'em if you 

 want 'em." 



The next evening Whort, with his 

 30-30, and Bill, with the new Savage, 

 struck out for Burroughs' mountain, 

 expecting to find me at my old 

 stamping ground. Not finding any 

 signs of us there, they trailed along 

 the side of the mountain nearly to 

 the head of Joe's gulch and struck 

 down the steep mountain side, right 

 where we were holding services. I 

 had barely time to get the sisters and 

 children started up the other side and 

 take the main trail myself to lead the 

 hunters off. I knew they wouldn't 

 bother the other tracks when once 

 they had sight of mine ; and so it was. 

 They got so close to me once it made 

 my old hair go straight up. I 

 couldn't leave the trail, for the moun- 

 tain was covered with fallen timber, 

 and I wouldn't have stood any show 

 at all in that. All I could do was to 

 keep on down the trail till I reached 

 the short grass, where they could not 

 track me. I knew they expected me 

 to keep on down the creek, but I 

 didn't. I turned off to the left, and 

 that night I killed a steer for Mrs. 

 Hodges over on Cottonwood. Whort 

 and Bill went back the next day and 

 set their traps, but I did not return 

 that fall. 



