6 
F O R E S T AND S T REAM 
January, 1919 
A western bear hunt seen through the eyes of an Oriental artist — note the faithfulness of minute detail 
I WE NT over and took a look at him, 
and lit out for camp, arriving a little 
bit after dark, tired and hungry. Temp 
had been there quite a while and had sup- 
per ready, but was very much excited. 
He had run across the track of the Club 
Foot Bear and was so eager to tell me all 
about it that did not think to ask me if 
I had killed anything. So while we ate 
he told me how he had been traveling 
through the woods and came to a prairie 
covered with high grass, and near the 
middle he ran onto a spring or hole of 
water, and there had been a bear there 
only a short time before, as the water 
was still muddy. When he went on out 
he left a trail of water and mud for a 
short distance, and then Temp could see 
his track plain, and it was sure enough 
the track of old Club Foot. Right there 
and then Temp turned back as he had no 
desire to come in contact with a grizzly, 
for he had heard they were ferocious 
beasts and would fight at the drop of a 
hat. I told him this was a fact as I had 
tried them, but that is another story. 
He was right in for starting out the 
next morning. But I told him we couldn’t 
do that as I had another Job on hand. He 
wanted to know what it was, and was as- 
tonished when I told him about killing 
the elk and wolf and wounding another 
elk. I told him we would take the horses 
and dogs and go to where the big buck 
was, and leave the horses and take the 
track of the wounded elk and follow it 
up. This suited Temp fine, for he stood 
as good a chance to get a shot in as I did. 
In the morning we saddled up, taking 
five head of horses and arrived about 
nine o’clock where the big elk lay. We 
tied our horses up and took up the trail 
of the elk. When the dogs smelled the 
blood they were eager to go, but I wasn’t 
ready yet. I had Temp put a string on 
Ranger and keep him back, then I let 
Trailer slow track the elk for a long 
way across gulches and over ridges and 
finally we came to where he had been 
lying down, but was up and gone. We 
followed to the top of a ridge and upon 
looking down discovered that the gulch 
was very brushy, so I decided to let the 
dogs go ; but before I did so I sent Temp 
back down the ridge with orders to shoot 
like the dickens if it came his way. I 
waited so as to give him plenty of time 
to get there, then I slipped the rope off 
Ranger’s neck and told them to go. And 
away they went down into the head of 
the gulch, and I heard the brush begin to 
crash, and away went the elk down the 
mountain side, and both dogs right after 
it, yelping at every jump. 
Temp heard them coming and was on 
the alert. He did not have long to wait 
as the elk soon came by on the opposite 
side of the gulch, and old Temp began to 
string bullets after it, and as luck would 
have it hit it once so that the dogs soon 
overtook it and then the fight commenced. 
I ran down the hill as fast as I could 
and overtaking Temp we hurried on down 
and soon came in sight. And such a 
sight! To see two of the finest trained 
bear dogs, almost, on earth, fighting a 
wounded elk. It was simply wonderful 
the way those dogs would get around 
and seize it by the ham, and get out of 
the way of its hoofs. I will not try to 
describe it, but will say that after we had 
stood and watched them quite a while I 
told Temp to watch his chance and put a 
bullet behind its shoulder and end it, 
which he did, and the fight was over. 
I sent Temp back after the horses 
while I skinned it and got it ready to 
pack. It was only a two year old and we 
packed it on two horses. When we got 
to the other one it took us quite a while 
to get it ready, but we finally got loaded 
and racked out for camp. We did not 
bother about the wolf and arrived at 
camp just about dark, hungry as wolves, 
and happy as clams. 
T emp wanted to start right out the 
next morning after old Club Foot, 
but I said, “No, we are going to cut 
this meat up and salt? it tomorrow and let 
the dogs rest up, and the next day we 
will go.” I told Temp if he thought we 
were going to have a picnic when the 
dogs got after old Club Foot he was bad- 
ly mistaken, as I was sure he would put 
up a great fight and we would have to get 
a good ready on. Well, we stayed in 
camp all next day. Got the meat all 
