THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 9 
ward of the animals so that they would not so easily hear or scent 
me. In order to do so, I had to go down the side of a steep canyon 
and up the other side. It was with no little difficulty that I pulled 
my two hundred pounds of avoirdupois up the sides of the canyon, 
but the vision of elk and the thought that I was going to get a shot 
at them acted as a stimulant. As I trudged up the steep and slippery 
side of the canyon, I wondered what I was going to do with so much 
elk meat, and then I thought of this and that friend that I would 
remember. Arriving at the top of the ridge, I carefully peeped over 
to locate the elk when, lo! and behold, my elk had been transformed 
into three two-year old steers. I had half a notion to take a shot 
at them anyway. Tired and disgusted, I started to return to my 
horse, but it seemed as though I would never get back up to the 
ridge where I had left him. 
As we had satisfied our appetites for trout; and, as the prospect 
for getting any birds or big game was not very good, we broke camp 
and went to the Alden farm at the lower end of Starkey Prairie and 
put up our tent, intending to remain at that place for a few days. 
Soon after we had our camp fixed up, an old bachelor homesteader 
by the name of ‘‘Hodges,’’ who has since passed to the ‘‘happy 
hunting ground’’ and who had a cabin at the mouth of one of the 
canyons near our camp, came over to our camp and told me that he 
was glad I had come there to camp, because for some time he had 
been bothered by a bear coming to his cabin during his absence and 
that he had seen signs of the marauder only the night before. He 
said that he had hunted bear a great deal himself and he had under- 
stood that I had hunted bear quite a good deal also, and that if I 
would go with him that evening, he thought we might get a chance 
to see and perhaps get a shot at Mr. Bruin. I told him that I would 
be ‘‘dee-lighted’’ to go with him. As a matter of fact, I had never 
hunted bear in my life, but I did not tell Hodges so, for there is 
no contempt so great as that of a bear hunter for a novice at the 
business. He had a couple of dogs which, while not blooded bear 
hounds, he said were very good at trailing a bear. I had a bird 
dog, and as Hodges thought it would not bother his dogs I took it 
along. 
We left his cabin about three o’clock in the afternoon, as he said 
that there was no use in starting any earlier because the bear would 
not be moving around until along toward evening. We started up the 
eanyon or ‘‘hollow’’ as he called it. Hodges was getting rather old, 
and as I was younger and accustomed to climbing over the hills, I 
led the way in going up the canyon. As the bottom of the canyon 
was bushy and full of dead falls, we climbed along the side about 
one-third to the top. The sun had barely passed over the western 
side of the canyon when I heard the dogs barking down in the bottom, 
but some distance ahead. I turned around and waited for Hodges to 
eatch up with me, but when he got within speaking distance he said, 
‘¢‘T think the dogs have got a bear located, Judge. Don’t wait for me. 
Go right along. I am just about give out.’’ I had a sudden stroke 
of locomotor ataxia myself about that time. The differential in my 
legs would not work, and the further I walked, I found myself 
gradually sideling off to the top of the canyon. Time was not so 
precious with me, and I was not so selfish as not to want to share 
the killing of the bear with Hodges, so I decided to wait until he 
came up. When he came up to me, or rather when I joined him as 
IT had to go down the canyon considerably to do so, we would see 
