356 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS 
CHAP. 
the previous day. The most valuable of the deer¬ 
skins was the black-tail, which realised, at a price 
per lb., IIS. This hide is used for making a very 
superior quality of glove, much prized in California. 
I strolled over to the camp of the two partners 
one morning, as I was on the way to shoot, and I 
found them engaged in arranging their vast masses 
of skins, all of which were neatly folded up, perfectly 
dry, without any other preparation than exposure to 
the keen dry air of this high altitude. 
Upon my inquiry of Big Bill respecting his 
operations on the previous day, he replied that he 
‘'guessed he had been occupied in running away 
from the biggest grizzly bear that ever was cubbed.” 
Big Bill was a Swede by parentage, born in the 
States. By trade he was a carpenter, but he had 
of late years taken to skin-hunting. He was an 
enormous fellow, about 6 feet 3 or 4, with huge 
shoulders and long muscular arms and hands. 
There was no harm in Bill; he was a first-rate shot 
with his *450 Sharp rifle, which appeared to be the 
weapon in general favour; but he had met with an 
adventure during the previous year which made him 
rather suspicious of strangers. 
Somewhere, not far from his present camp, a 
mounted stranger dropped in late one evening. 
The man was riding a good horse, but was quite 
alone ; so also was Big Bill. The camp of the skin- 
hunter was then the same in appearance as when I 
saw him and his partner Bob Stewart—simplicity 
itself; a long spruce pole was lashed at either end 
