220 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
the dogs some liver, which I cut up fine for them. They did not 
like it very much, but ate some of it. However, as soon as I got 
back to my horse I fed them, as I had brought along something for 
them. 
This was a big cinnamon bear, and how those dogs could keep 
him up that long is a mystery to me, unless he had come down and 
been fighting them on the ground part of the time. 
I will skip over the rest of them now and tell you about the 
bear I caught the day before Christmas, As I said before, to tell of 
every one Trailer caught would take up entirely too much space. Bui 
just think of two dogs staying out three days and nights! Do you 
wonder at me thinking the world of Trailer? 
On the 24th of December there was snow, so I took both dogs 
with me and started out in the morning for a hunt, not expecting 
in the least to kill a bear, as they were all holed up long before, but 
I wanted a deer, and in those days it was not against the law to kill 
them in December. I took the dogs along in case we should run 
across a varmint track. 
I went away off up Griffin Creek and up by what they called 
Miller’s Flat and quite a ways up the ridge, without seeing a thing, 
when all at once I ran across a wildcat track. Away the dogs went, 
straight down the hill, across the left .hand prong of Griffin Creek, 
and over the hill out of hearing. I followed, and when I got down 
across the creek I stopped and, happening to look back up the hill, 
I saw a bear going along the hillside, right where I had come along. ' 
The hillside was burned off and. I could see him plainly, but it was 
a long shot. I hauled up and sent a bullet over that way once, any- 
how, just for luck, but didn’t reach him, and away he went as fast 
as he could run. I didn’t shoot any more as it would be nonsense 
at that distance, anyhow, so I went on up to the top of the hill, 
thinking as I went along what the dogs would do when I brought 
them back and they struck that bear track. When I got up there, 
I heard them down the hill a short distance, barking up a tree. I 
went down and, sure enough, it was a big wildcat. I shot him out, 
and after they yanked him around a while, I started back over the 
hill. I was getting mighty anxious to get back to that bear track. 
When I got up within thirty or forty yards of where he had gone 
along, both dogs broke out and, taking the track, went down around 
the hillside, yelping every jump. I knew they couldn’t help but get 
him, so I thought I would take his back track and see where he came 
from: I tracked him back about forty yards, and there I found his 
den at the root of a big fir that had been burned and hollowed out. 
The dogs and I had disturbed him and he lay still until he thought 
the coast was clear, then came out to change his quarters. The dogs 
were soon around the point of the hill and out of hearing, so I went 
straight up to the top of the hill and I heard them away off, down 
near the right fork of the creek. JI went on down to where they 
were, and they had him in a eave. I went up along the side of the 
mouth of the’ cave and looked in and I could see his eyes shining like 
two coals of fire. I pointed the gun as near between the eyes as I 
could and pulled the trigger, then stepped back to one side and threw 
another load in. When the gun cracked, both dogs went in side by 
side, and I suppose he must have fallen, for they came out of there 
backwards and each one had him by the side of the head, and he 
wasn’t dead by a long shot. There was a big log along in front of 
the cave, and when he got well out, he knocked Trailer loose and 
eave some kind of a yank and threw the old dog over the log, but 
Trailer held on and hung right to him. The bear placed his feet on 
