MAINLY ABOUT BEARS 43 



as winter is the best time for the poachers. A 

 good buffalo head^ mounted, is worth a thousand 

 dollars today, and the skin three hundred; so a 

 couple of kills is worth a big risk. Not long ago a 

 desperado got in and killed eight of them before 

 MacBride caught him. He is spending two years 

 in Yellowstone jail with a fine on top of it. 



Occasionally a bear gets old, ugly, dangerous, 

 or commits some depredation, some infraction of 

 the Park law, and then MacBride is sent for. Not 

 long ago an old black bear, after making himself 

 a nuisance by depredations on camping parties, 

 distinguished himself by killing a cow belong- 

 ing to the Canon Hotel. And here comes in a 

 curious rule of the Park. No animal may be shot 

 within sight or sound of another. To do so would 

 seem a violation of the treaty. It would destroy 

 their confidence, upset the whole scheme, and 

 break in on their education. So MacBride had the 

 half-eaten carcass left, knowing the bear would 

 return. Half the night he watched till he got the 

 criminal, and by morning there was nothing left 

 to show that justice had been done. For when a 



