'! 
crumpled up on the ice and I picked 
him up without any difficulty. 
There were quite a number of musk¬ 
rats along that little stream and Wells 
took a great interest in trapping them. 
t In the several days that we were yet 
obliged to stay he caught quite a num¬ 
ber of them. When we had left civili¬ 
zation furs were worth a goodly sum in 
the market, in fact they were higher 
than has ever been known. 
Beavers were bringing as high 
as forty dollars and ’rats were 
averaging anywhere from 
three to five dollars straight. 
Thus one will see that a trap¬ 
per did not have to catch many 
furs in order to make a good 
thing of an expedition. 
. Finally the snow had melted 
enough for us to get down to 
the Athabasca and stop over 
at my little cabin at the mouth 
of the creek. The ice had all 
gone out of the river although 
there were yet some great 
cakes of it lying along the 
shores. The river at this point 
flows through a deep valley, 
which at intervals resembled 
a canyon because of the steep 
sandstone cliffs. The snow was prac¬ 
tically all gone in the valley and for 
some distance upon the hills that faced 
the south. We travelled around quite 
a bit but saw no fresh signs of bear, 
at which we were rather disappointed 
as we had figured on them being out 
by this time. 
The habits of bears at this time of 
year are very uncertain but ordinarily 
they will be seen along the larger 
streams and seem to have a particular 
liking for the sunny slopes. Here they 
are sure of getting the fresh green 
grass and the grubs and worms are 
more active on these warm slopes. It 
is worth a small fortune to be able 
to watch bears, especially a mother 
and her cubs, as they forage about on 
a hillside. The little fellows follow 
the old Lady and sit expectantly while 
she turns over a big rotten log and if 
there is anything doing in the line of 
grubs or ants there is a mighty 
scramble. It is certainly amusing to 
LOG PEN SET. 
THE TRAP, A No. 5 NEWHOUSE. TOOK A 
LARGE CINNAMON BEAR 
note the eagerness with which a 
monstrous grizzly will go after such 
things and one wonders how on earth 
they manage to get fat on them. 
Contrary to popular opinion the 
grizzly bear is not naturally a carniv¬ 
orous, or flesh-eating animal and the 
vast majority of his food consists of 
herbs, plants and wild fruits. Such 
assiduous berry pickers are these huge 
bears, that by the time the cold weather 
comes along they are simply rolling in 
fat. Incidentally I may say that the 
bear grease or “lard” which the trap¬ 
per extracts from the fat of the animal, 
is worth far more to him than the hide 
fetches in the market. I have person¬ 
ally taken as much as forty pounds of 
this lard” from one bear. One time 
while trapping on the Baptiste my dogs 
discovered a bear den that contained 
a large black fellow. I killed him, 
dragged him out of his retreat (which 
was about as hard a job as I ever 
tackled) and when I went to cut him up 
I found layers of fat on his 
hips over two inches in thick¬ 
ness. This was more to be 
wondered at as it was then 
well on toward spring and one 
would naturally think that the 
bears would be very thin. 
About fifteen miles west of 
the cabin on the Athabasca 
was a group of three lakes 
lying in a sort of chain, up on 
the second bench from the 
river. The center lake was 
supposed to be a good one for 
’rats, so Wells and I packed 
the dogs and ourselves and hit 
out in that direction along the 
old Medicine Lodge Trail. The 
whole country was a mass of 
lakes; the frost had not yet 
gone out of the ground and 
the snow water lay everywhere. There 
was no use in trying to keep the feet 
dry so we plunged right through the 
most of it avoiding only the deeper 
pools. This portion of the old trail 
seemed to be a regular shedding 
ground for moose and deer and old 
antlers were lying everywhere. 
After traveling - nearly all day we 
came to a creek similar in size to the 
Lynx. On a hillside next to this 
stream was on old dirt tepee, but on 
inspecting it we found that it was bet¬ 
ter to make a shelter outside. This we 
(Continued on page 515) 
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Page 489 
