410 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 12, 1910. 
of game. All this is an iridescent dream; the 
reserves were usually selected on account of 
wood, water and horse feed. Long ago the old 
miner discovered most mineral bearing forma¬ 
tions, and those that are now left are mostly 
wildcat in every sense of the word. So with 
this region; it was wildcat from start to finish, 
and no man has ever sold an ounce of gold or 
a pound of copper that came from its hills. 
Still, the public wanted these mountains, and a 
commission was sent out by the Government to 
treat with the Montana Blackfeet for the moun¬ 
tain or mineral part of their reserve, and the 
part which the Indians finally sold is now 
included in the proposed Glacier National 
Park. 
I was taken along with the commission as 
guide and packer, although one of its members 
knew this region quite as well as I. A physician 
accompanied us, as our outfit was large and 
someone might be sick at any time. There were 
ten Indians, four mixed bloods and the commis¬ 
sion with two members, a cook, packers, horse 
wranglers and surveyors. 
The doctor was one of those jolly off-hand 
men that one takes to at once, and he told me 
that the height of his ambition was to kill some¬ 
thing on this trip. I was supposed to attend 
strictly to the business of packing and helping 
the commissioners to see the mineral part of 
the reserve, but while going up the Swift Cur¬ 
rent River the doctor and I had contrived to 
be in the lead of the whole party. In the low 
grassy outlying hills about 200 yards off the trail 
we saw a large grizzly or silver tip bear. He 
had seen us, had run to the top of the hill, 
paused for a few seconds to survey our outfit of 
about fifty head of horses and men; then, with 
the western sun making his coat look like bur¬ 
nished silver, and the chinook wind raising and 
waving his hair so we could see the length of 
the fur, he was gone. The whole thing occupied 
but a few seconds, but in that few seconds both 
the doctor and I caught the worst possible case 
of bear fever. 
That night the sun set upon our camp at Swift 
Current falls with not a cloud to be seen. Next 
morning the sun rose with a sky still clear, but 
on a scene how changed! Yesterday had been 
a warm sunny afternoon, the chinook wind com¬ 
ing soft and balmy from the west. We had 
looked upon bare cliffs, evergreen trees and 
brown September bunch grass waving in the sun¬ 
light. During the night a storm had come up 
and left about four inches of soft snow upon 
mountain, hill and valley. It seemed like an 
act of special Providence for the doctor, for 
we knew the bears were there, and here was 
the tracking snow and weather as soft, as sunny, 
as fair as a bride could wish. 
No man with hunting blood in his veins or 
who could boast of a single ancestor in a thou¬ 
sand years who had thrilled at the baying of 
hounds, the call of the wild or roar of battle, 
could resist the temptation of so fortunate a 
combination of circumstances. With the bear 
fever of yesterday and the weather of to-day, 
nothing but a gang of road agents or sudden 
death could have stopped us. 
Early the doctor and I mounted our horses 
and rode off on the back trail. He carried a 
.45-70 repeater, one of the best guns for large 
game that has yet been made. I had no gun 
with me, but borrowed a .44-40 carbine from 
an Indian, who said it had not been cleaned for 
two years. 
The doctor was the hunter and—like the 
Texan—I only carried a gun to keep from being 
lonesome. I was followed by two dogs, in which 
I took a great deal of pride. Nig, the father, 
had twenty-two mountain lions to his credit. 
One spring he and I got nine black bears in the 
Flathead, and though he had often had to run 
when an old bear reached for him too hotly, 
yet when the gun cracked he was always ready 
to charge. I thought a lot of those dogs. 
Two Indians followed us a short distance and 
then branched off across the low rolling hills 
to the northeast. We went back several miles 
to where we had seen the bear of yesterday and 
there also left the trail and rode through the 
parks and aspens, now covered with snow. We 
saw the Indians, Brocky and his partner, riding 
their horses furiously back and forth, giving the 
Indian sign for us to come to them. Soon we 
heard five shots and then up and across a large 
park we saw a large bear run swiftly ovei the 
snow and disappear about one mile away. We 
were sure it was our bear of yesterday, but 
thinking Brocky might have wounded it and 
would not follow it into the brush and timber, 
and that with dogs to point and place him we 
would have a show for fun and fur, we started 
for Brocky. 
We had not gone far when we ran across 
trails in the snow that made us gaze in silent 
glee. Did you ever see a bear track in the loose 
snow? There were two of these, and from the 
size of the tracks we concluded that they had 
been made by the father of all the bears. We 
turned on the trail and followed the tracks for 
a short distance. They led into an aspen thicket 
about 300 yards in diameter. The aspens stand¬ 
ing fifteen feet high were as thick as the hair 
on a dog’s back, and it was useless to try to 
put a horse through them. We turned to the 
left and made a complete circle around that 
patch, but found no tracks going out. I could 
hardly believe that those bears were in there, 
and again we silently rode around the aspens. 
Coming near where the bears had entered the 
thicket, we stopped and tied our horses, and 
taking the bear tracks followed them in the jun¬ 
gle. We evidently had excited the curiosity of 
those bears, for we found their bed and saw 
that we had passed within seventy-five feet of 
each other in the thick brush as we were going 
in and they coming out. As we followed them, 
they came to the outer edge of the aspens where 
we had ridden our horses and did not like to 
cross our horse trail. Once I caught sight of 
one of them, but the doctor being behind me 
did not see her. The bears were not alarmed 
and for nearly two hours we followed them in 
that patch. I did not like to send the dogs after 
them, for I knew that bears and dogs would 
come to us together, and in that thick brush the 
show for the bears was rather too good. After 
we were about tired out, still-hunting that 
thicket, we found that the bears had 'seen or 
scented us and had left the thicket and run 
down the hill toward the Swift Current River. 
Seeing there was no chance for a shot by still¬ 
hunting, I sent on the dogs, but the bears had 
reached the river and swam across, and the 
dogs could not follow. 
“Come, doctor,” I said, “those bears may stop 
to eq,t up a dog; let us make a run for them. 
I am tired of sneaking around trying to get a 
shot on the sly.” 
“I have had enough bears or bear tracks for 
one day,” said he. “If you need exercise, go 
to them.” 
Throwing off everything to running weight I 
took the tracks of bears and dogs. The river 
was a mile to the south and I met the dogs com¬ 
ing back. The tracks showed that the bears had 
crossed the river before the dogs had overtaken 
them, and the dogs had balked at the stream. 
I found a riffle and waded across waist deep, 
and picking up the track we entered the dense, 
heavy evergreen forest of pine, fir and spruce. 
The wind had risen and was now blowing softly 
from the southeast. The snow made our foot¬ 
falls noiseless and we trotted along on the trail 
of those bears for a mile or so. I found where 
one had laid down, but evidently the other had 
induced him to go a little further. We were 
now among heavy spruces, whose slanting limbs 
came nearly to the ground, forming a cover 
around the base of the tree where sun, rain, or 
snow never penetrates. Under one of those 
trees the bears must have been lying asleep 
when I was approaching with the dogs. I saw 
one bear start about fifty feet from us, and as 
I swung my gun on him I saw the old one just 
as she came over the bushes or out from under 
the spruce limbs not more than thirty feet away. 
I was ready and looking for bear and I 
pumped in three shots before she rolled to the 
ground within fifteen feet of me. The dogs 
charged and bear and dogs were mixed up in 
a fighting, growling, barking bunch rather too 
close for comfort. 
I expected a charge from the elder bear, and 
before I knew what had happened I was twenty 
feet up among the branches of a nearby spruce. 
My .44-40 was left on the ground, for in my 
haste to get up that tree I really felt the need 
of both hands. It was the first—and I hope the 
last time—that I have stampeded with a gun in 
my hand, but then I had no confidence in the 
gun. I saw the bear struggling to get up and 
heard a howl of pain from the young dog which 
had attacked her head. I saw him run, with the 
bear a close second, while the old dog was hang¬ 
ing on behind. In a moment I heard the old 
dog baying about 100 yards away, and scram¬ 
bling down out of the tree I shoved more car¬ 
tridges into the magazine of the rifle, and went 
on a trot to where the dog was baying. My 
young dog came along and I tried to encour¬ 
age him to go and help fight, but his tail was 
bitten off near the base and all the fight was 
knocked out of him. 
Before I came in sight of them the bear broke 
and ran, and again I heard the dog baying, and 
I was sure that he would stay with anything 
that was wounded and I regarded that bear as 
already mine. The noise ceased while I was 
cautiously approaching, and soon the old dog 
joined me, dragging one leg. I tried to get those 
dogs to go on, but they were “buffaloed.” There 
was not one ounce of fight in either of them. 
I found on the trail blood, a small piece of fat 
and entrail. The sign looked as though the bear 
had caught the dog just as a terrier does a rat. 
1 here were four holes in his hip and leg and 
the bear in her blind fury must have caught him 
and thrown him into the air, and when he lit, he 
lit running. 
1 here was the bloody bear track going down 
