362 
WILD Leasts and their wa vs 
CHAP. 
summits and the spruce fir sides of the mountains, 
without a trace of the big bear. We passed the old 
traces that we had seen the previous day upon the 
snow, but they were still more indistinct, and there 
was nothing fresh. I was determined, if possible, to 
find this bear, therefore I devoted a third day to the 
pursuit, discarding all other game. On the third 
morning I started with Texas Bill and Jem Bourne, 
all mounted, and we rode by a circuitous route to 
the summit of the hill above the valley of our camp. 
The snow had melted in most places, leaving only 
small half-thawed patches. We had so thoroughly 
explored the entire hillside for a distance of several 
miles during the last two days, that I arranged a 
beat on the other side of the mountain, upon the 
northern slope, facing the far-distant Rocky Moun¬ 
tains. 
There were no spruce forests upon this side, but 
the long incline was merely a sheet of rough prairie 
grass about 18 inches high, intersected by deep 
ravines, filled with dwarf cotton-wood trees, 
resembling the silver-barked black poplar. These 
trees grew about 25 feet high, and as thick as a 
man’s arm, but so close together that it was difficult 
to force a way through on horseback. 
There were many isolated patches of this covert 
in various places upon the face of this northern 
slope, all of which were likely to harbour bears or 
other game. My eye caught instinctively a long 
dark ravine which cut the mountain from top to 
base, extending several miles ; this was intersected 
