4 
bunch of birds. His tail was held 
straight out, although there was no 
action to it, and his head was carried 
as nicely as any bird dog I ever saw. 
He ranged within twenty yards of us, 
but as the wind favored us he did not 
get our scent. 
After lunch we started out to give the 
flats a “look over” for bear signs, and, 
after an hour of mushing our parties 
separated and shortly afterward Oscar 
picked up a bear shuffling along the 
lower edge of the mountain range where 
it met the flat. The wind we found 
would favor us if we moved quickly, so 
we lost no time in trying to head him 
off. He had several patches of alders 
to go through, but our hopes ran high 
each time he reappeared in the open 
spaces separating them. As the distance 
between us lessened, we saw that this 
fellow was not going to be “passed up” 
as he surely was large and of good color. 
He finally disappeared in the bunch of 
alders along which we were working, 
but we hoped he would come out of 
these, so I could get a shot at him. We 
were now most careful not to step on 
any dry twigs and quite ready for our 
first meeting with the king of the bear 
family. 
Our hopes were soon realized by his 
coming out of the alders, and as I threw 
myself on the ground he detected the 
motion and stopped broadside, turning 
his head to see what it was. His hesita¬ 
tion was my opportunity and I put a 
bullet back of his shoulder that sent him 
down on his rump facing me. I am sure 
that one would have been enough, but 
Oscar called for another, and I gave it 
to him in the chest, and still another as 
he pitched toward the alders, for we did 
not want the job of skinning him out 
in there, as it is a physical impossibility 
for two men to move those huge fellows 
one inch, except to roll them over. 
On going up to him we saw he was dead 
and pacing off the distance we found it 
measured about eighty yards. After 
taking his measurements we decided to 
wait until the following morning before 
skinning him out, as we wanted a picture 
of him, and, not expecting action so 
soon, had not brought the camera along. 
The next morning was spent in going 
out to our kill and skinning him out, 
and mushing in with the skin, which we 
estimated weighed about 135 pounds. It 
surely was a man’s job packing a ten- 
foot green hide over the flats for three 
miles. 
While skinning out my bear we found 
that he had been in a fight. He had the 
imprint of the toe nails of a bear’s front 
foot right through his skin, two holes in 
his throat, a three-inch rip on his side, 
and a smaller one on his belly, besides 
being minus one of his fighting tusks. 
All the holes in his hide being in a state 
of suppuration. 
T HE next morning we started for a 
valley which branched off from Head 
Valley and on entering it we found the 
track of a huge bear in fresh snow. 
Without doubt it was made by a larger 
bear than the one I had killed two days 
before, but before taking up this trail we 
decided to go up the valley a little 
farther. Not being rewarded up there, 
Oscar and I came back to our big track, 
but the sun in the meantime had played 
havoc with it and totally effaced all 
traces. 
On leaving that valley we saw a 
female and two yearlings, but did not 
disturb them, and shortly afterward we 
saw a bear about a mile away. He 
looked fairly good as a prospect, so 
playing the wind carefully we got up to 
within about one hundred yards of him. 
Forest and Stream 
To do so we had to go into the same 
bunch of alders he was in, and fortu¬ 
nately we found a boulder which 
elevated us eight or nine feet and gave 
us a chance to see further than we 
otherwise would have been able to. 
This bear just wouldn’t get in any 
position where we could get a good look 
at him, and I was just about to shoot 
over him to try and start him down our 
way when I saw another one higher up 
and some 300 yards to the right running 
toward the first bear. When he came 
within fifty yards of him he gave a 
couple of loud whiffs and soon they were 
together and both started feeding. It 
was snowing and blowing very hard 
now, and it was not very long before 
we were both chilled through to the 
bone. There was no chance of working 
up to them in the alders, as they were 
altogether too thick, so we just had to 
wait until the squall passed on. When 
we saw them again during a let-up they 
did not appear to be very large, so we 
lost interest in them. We backed out 
of our position and we hope they will 
survive a few years longer to attain 
more growth. 
On our way back to camp we saw 
another female and two cubs, and as I 
had a commission from the American 
Museum of Natural Histoty to secure 
a group, I gave them a good looking 
over, but the color was not good enough 
on the mother, being a dirty yellow, so 
I did not try for them. I noticed after¬ 
wards that quite a few, including the 
two nine-footers of the morning, were 
of that light color. 
When half way across the flat, Oscar 
spotted a bear at the foot of the moun¬ 
tain ahead of us, and through the bin¬ 
oculars he seemed to be a good one, 
so we made our “sneak” on him, but 
when we got to where he should have 
been, we could not find him. The coun¬ 
try was covered with small patches of 
alders, and after moving about a bit we 
found we had gone beyond him, as he 
had scented us, and when we finally saw 
him again he was running away. Pos¬ 
sibly I might have hit him, but he was 
not over eight feet so I did not try. 
'"PHE next week was spent in the main 
camp, with contrary winds and no 
results and we finally decided to go over 
to Head Valley camp, and see what 
King was doing and hunt from there. 
There was territory enough there for 
both parties if we hunted different sec¬ 
tions. 
About four o’clock one afternoon we 
saw a bear about two miles off on the 
flats, and although the wind was a trifle 
on the “fish-tail” order we thought we 
might get within shooting distance. It 
was a hard proposition to find him when 
we got to where we thought he should 
be, as the ground was very flat, with 
some cover. Oscar finally located him 
at about 200 yards, taking a nap, and on 
my inquiry, “Is he a big one?” assured 
me he was. 
We crawled al®ng carefully for an¬ 
other 100 yards and saw that he was 
taking it easy, but raising his head every 
