s 4 



RECREATION. 



ers offered their services as guides, but he 

 said he did not want a guide. He was 

 competent to take care of himself, find his 

 own game and kill it. The people sized 

 him up as a rank tenderfoot, and, winking 

 at one another, several of them advised him 

 how to proceed. Two or 3 of the North- 

 west mounted police were present and re- 

 garded the stranger rather more seriously 

 than the cow punchers did. They feared 

 he might get lost if he went into the woods 

 and perhaps starve to death. The sergeant 

 told one of the policemen to notice_ which 

 way the man went, follow him at a distance, 

 and after a few hours to bring him back to 

 the station. 



The cowboys told the Englishman to take 

 the main road down the valley, and that 

 after getting out of town a mile or so he 

 would stand a good show of finding a bear 

 anywhere. After dinner, the Englishman 

 shouldered his fancy double barrel express 

 rifle, hooked oil his cartridge belt, in which 

 he carried a large hunting knife, and 

 walked off down the road. 



The town loafers were having all sorts 

 of fun among themselves as to what the 

 result would be. There were ranches all 

 along the road and the hunter could hardly 

 get out of sight of a house anywhere with- 

 in 20 miles. Bets were made as to how 

 long it would take him to get tired of hunt- 

 ing bear and return to the village. 



Night came on and all eyes were turned 

 down the road, watching for a dusty trav- 

 eler; but none appeared, and at 9 or 10 

 o'clock the men scattered to their bunks. 

 The next morning the sergeant started 2 

 of the police officers to hunt the English- 

 man. Several of the loiterers mounted 

 their horses and accompanied the officers. 

 They had gone but 4 or 5 miles down the 

 valley when they saw smoke rising from 

 among the trees, a hundred yards from the 

 road. They turned out and _ found the 

 Englishman complacently leaning against 

 a tree, in front of his fire, eating some 

 crackers and cheese he had carried with 

 him, and 10 feet away lay one of the big- 

 gest grizzlies that had been killed in that 

 country in years. The Englishman had 

 simply stumbled into a piece of luck. He 

 had found a fresh track of a bear crossing 

 the road, had followed it so quietly that he 

 came on the bear before it knew there was 

 any harm in sight, and had bowled the old 

 chap over with 2 well directed shots. The 

 laugh was on the men who had laughed at 

 the tenderfoot. 



Another Englishman went to Bozeman 

 some years ago and made known to the 

 local gun dealer his desire to go on a bear 

 hunt. A guide, cook and packer were em- 

 ployed, an outfit of horses, food, tents, etc., 

 was pulled together, and the next morning 



the party strung out for the mountains. 

 This Bozeman crowd had also sized up 

 their patron as a tenderfoot and had con- 

 gratulated themselves on having an easy 

 snap in sight. They had gone but a short 

 distance into the foothills when they found 

 where a big bear had crossed the trail. 

 The track was several days old, but they 

 did not say so to the Englishman. They 

 told him it was fresh, and that a bear near- 

 ly always returned on his trail within a 

 few hours. 



"Now," said they, "if you will just sit 

 down here and keep quiet, you are sure to 

 get a shot before night, or if the bear does 

 not come back to-day he will to-morrow or 

 the next day. We will go up the next 

 creek a mile from here, make camp, and 

 have dinner ready for you about dusk." 



The Englishman was obedient and con- 

 fiding, so he did as he was told. He sat 

 there patiently all the afternoon, looking up 

 the side of the hill and waiting for the bear 

 to come doubling back on his trail. The 

 afternoon wore away, the sun sank behind 

 the mountain, darkness began to gather, 

 and when it got too dark to see to shoot 

 the Englishman shouldered his gun and hit 

 the trail for camp. On arrival there the 

 boys expressed their sympathy with him 

 and said, 



"You are sure to get a shot to-morrow or 

 the next day, if you stick to it." 



The camp was astir before daylight and 

 by the time it was light enough to see the 

 trail the Englishman was at his post again. 



He stayed till near sundown, when he 

 showed up at camp and asked the boys to 

 come down with him and help skin the 

 bear. At first they thought "he was joking, 

 but when he assured them he was in dead 

 earnest, they were speechless with surprise. 

 They could scarcely believe he was in his 

 right mind. However, they went with him 

 and when they arrived at the place where 

 they had stationed him, they found an im- 

 mense grizzly with 3 or 4 bullet holes 

 through him. Again the laugh was on the 

 Smart Alecks. 



A writer who lives in Washington, 

 D. C, was traveling in the Canadian 

 Rockies in search of adventures and other 

 things, on which to write a book. He found 

 one thing that he probably did not record 

 in his book. One day while in camp at the 

 junction of Bear creek and the Saskatche- 

 wan river he and 2 of his men went out 

 to look for something to write about, and 

 found a big white animal, of which they 

 got a fleeting glimpse as it moved through 

 the bushes. One man fired at the animal 

 and wounded it. The bookish man asked 

 them what it was and they said it was a 

 grizzly, whereupon Litterateur shinned up 

 a tree. The men followed the wounded 



