July 17 , 1909] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
89 
t: shore a distance of ten or twelve miles to 
fgnal Point where a big fire was to be built 
the evening at an elevation sufficiently high 
be seen twenty miles diagonally across the 
;e at Hofers camp, and on the following 
ernoon they were to send the launch for us, 
it was not considered safe for us to cross 
1 lake in the canvas canoe. 
Another Bear Appears. 
hat night we put up two small tents and 
Hied in early, but within an hour we were 
' en another surprise. I was awakened at 
/clock by loud yells from the guides’ tent, 
cowed by cries of “Bear! bear! bear!” 
"zing my little revolver I hurried out of the 
-• ar, d looked about in the moonlight, but saw 
thing. I then entered the guides’ tent and 
sed what was wrong. Thereupon Hammer, 
t) had not yet succeeded in crawling out of 
i sleeping bag, told me that a bear had just 
s.ed the sack containing all our salt meat 
n ' ma de off with it, and an investigation show- 
ithis to be true. He said that a half hour 
fire he had heard something moving around 
1 ront of the tent and had supposed that it 
‘ I getting a bite or two from the lunch bas- 
5 ! As the noise continued he sat up and 
Kight he saw a dark animal going down over 
i< bank, but was afraid to say anything, as it 
a possible he was mistaken. A little later, on 
:..ing the sound again, he saw a large black 
i,ial dragging away the bag containing the 
ef and thereupon made the outcry. 
1 rrell declared that my habit of placing dead 
of close to the camp each night for the pur- 
of coaxing into view coyotes and other 
cders of the night was responsible for the 
c s intrusion, and that while of course it was 
kick bear he was of the opinion that it had 
'tdeveloped its thieving habits about any of 
e,iotels, since we were more than thirty miles 
D|> the nearest habitation by any land route, 
ffvas certain it was not a grizzly, since they 
:> never known to enter a tent in this way. 
\s were now in a rather peculiar predica- 
f° r this bag contained twenty pounds of 
r ten pounds of bacon and half a ham, and 
Evvas the only meat of any kind that we had 
t The grease from it was relied on for fry- 
Hur flapjacks, and generally for taking the 
,c of butter of which we were entirely out. 
P e signal fire was not to be built until the 
Hing night, and it would be the afternoon 
e third day before we were called for, it 
<t that we should have to get along upon 
ncture of flour and cornmeal until that time, 
chow unfortunate that all the trout in this 
']■ la ^ e were afflicted with parasites and so 
5 for food! 
^ next morning seventy-five yards down 
Ik trail we found the bag, as well as a can 
h from the bag—that had contained rasp- 
r jam. Its contents had been extracted 
°= h perforations made by the animal’s large 
J and the can, though pressed nearly flat, 
; otherwise unbroken, but looked as if a 
re of buckshot had been fired through it. 
l.t morning, on thinking the matter over, I 
6 though I were entitled to make one ex¬ 
in as to photographing animals in the park, 
hat I should remain that night and take 
ar’s picture by flashlight, since it was quite 
<i that he would return in search of an¬ 
other feast. It was agreed that my two guides 
should take one tent and most of the cooking 
utensils and paddle down the shore to Lookout 
Point, where the fire would be built, and then 
on the following morning they could return for 
me in plenty of time for 11s to be picked up in 
the afternoon by the Hofer launch. 
Preparing for the Flashlight Battle. 
After the men had passed out of sight around 
the first bend I began my preparations for the 
coming bombardment. The little table made of 
driftwood in front of the guides’ tent, and from 
under which the meat had been stolen, was left 
standing, and on this I placed two cameras, fac¬ 
ing the lake shore, and two turned down the elk 
trail. At a distance of thirty feet in front of 
each set of cameras, stakes were driven with 
CONJOINED SOLIDLY. 
(See page 91.) 
strings running from the same and connected 
by a “Y” with the cameras and flashlight. At 
each stake a half dozen trout were fastened to 
the end of the string running through a screw- 
eye. As the moon was about full it was impos¬ 
sible to leave the shutters of the cameras open, 
but by this arrangement the bear, by pulling on 
the bait, could throw open the shutters and fire 
the flash an instant later. It was with great im¬ 
patience that I waited until twilight, although 
for a time I sat up on the edge of the hill and 
watched two bull moose feeding in ponds a few 
hundred yards this side of the mouth of the 
river. 
As the day declined the light of the moon be¬ 
came more and more brilliant, and at 9 o’clock 
I could readily see seventy-five yards down the 
elk trail, and even more readily the baited stake 
on the open lake shore. While thus waiting, a 
bull elk whistled twice from a plateau above, an 
anomaly at that season of the year. I was sur¬ 
prised, however, that up to this time there had 
been no signs of the bear, and at half-past nine 
concluded that I might as well lie down in the 
sleeping bag as to be continually peering out of 
the tent. I had not been lying down more than 
five minutes when I heard a metallic click and 
knew at once that a bear or some other animal 
had pulled the string of one of the flashlight 
machines, and that it had missed fire. Hastily 
looking out of the tent I at once saw down the 
elk trail a large black animal devouring the fish, 
and knew that he had already thrown open the 
shutters of the cameras and that the effort to 
take the picture had been a failure by reason 
of the machine missing fire. 
For a minute this upset me very much until 
I recollected that in the tent I had a hand flash¬ 
light apparatus, loaded for any emergency, and 
that by crawling on all fours to the cameras I 
could fire this flashlight and get precisely the 
same results that would have been obtained had 
the other machine done its duty. 
1 his plan I attempted to put into execution 
and as I crept behind the table, raised my right 
hand high enough so that the light of the flash 
would be thrown well above the cameras at the 
instant of explosion. But just as the finger was 
pressing the trigger I heard a “waugh” and then 
the sound of a heavy animal running away. 
Looking over the cameras I saw the bear gal¬ 
loping down the elk trail and disappearing into 
the overhanging bushes. 
I then looked at the flashlight machine and 
found that the fault had been entirely my own, 
as this particular apparatus had a double trig¬ 
ger, the outside one being pulled by the slightest 
pressure, and that in arranging the machine that 
afternoon I had set the outside trigger, but had 
forgotten to do so with the inside one, having 
intended to do it at dark. The metallic sound 
that I heard was caused by the outside firing 
pin. So, with the aid of a little electric pocket 
lamp, I proceeded to reset it, a rather compli 
cated proceeding, since one of the pins was 
slightly bent on account of both triggers not 
having been set. 
The Second Surprise. 
For three or four minutes I worked” away, sit¬ 
ting on my hunkers, when I became aware of 
heavy breathing close at hand, and with a little 
trepidation looked over my shoulder on either 
side, but could see nothing. Raising up slightly, 
so that I could look over the cameras, I saw 
something that was decidedly paralyzing. With¬ 
in five feet of me and directly opposite, sitting 
on its haunches, was an immense silver-tip 
grizzly, which for size seemed to be the daddy 
of them all. The bright rays of the moon fell 
directly upon the head and breast, so that I could 
see the little beady eyes fixed steadily on me, 
while the half-open mouth showed the more 
prominent teeth. And this was Ferrell’s “black” 
bear, and my guides sitting by a glowing fire a 
dozen miles away! 
The question then immediately arose, “What 
should I do?” He was facing the two cameras 
pointed toward the lake, but even if I had felt 
like taking his picture, he was entirely out of 
focus at that close range. To run for the tent, 
where I had my little revolver and the axe, 
seemed a dangerous proceeding. Visible evi¬ 
dence of fear invites attack from any dangerous 
animal, wild or domestic. 
An instant later I realized that I was just as 
safe from any harm as if there were half dozen 
men standing by my side with rifles aimed at 
