tted red with the
kinnikinic berries, and at its edge, under the trees where the ground was
dry, I threw down the buffalo bed on the mat of sweet-smelling
pine-needles. Making camp took but a moment. I opened the pack, tossed the
bedding on a smooth spot, knee-haltered the little mare, dragged up a few
dry logs, and then strolled off, rifle on shoulder, through the frosty
gloaming, to see if I could pick up a grouse for supper.

For half a mile I walked quickly and silently over the pine-needles,
across a succession of slight ridges, separated by narrow, shallow
valleys. The forest here was composed of lodge-pole pines, which on the
ridges grew close together, with tall slender trunks, while in the valleys
the growth was more open. Though the sun was behind the mountains there
was yet plenty of light by which to shoot, but it was fading rapidly.

At last, as I was thinking of turning toward camp, I stole up to the crest
of one of the ridges, and looked over into the valley some sixty yards
off. Immediately I caught the loom of some large, dark object; and another
glance showed me a big grizzly walking slowly off with his head down. He
was quartering to me, and I fired into his flank, the bullet, as I
afterward found, ranging forward and piercing one lung. At the shot he
uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy gallop, while
I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off. After going a few hundred
feet he reached a laurel thicket, some thirty yards broad, and two or
three times as long, which he did not leave. I ran up to the edge and
there halted, not liking to venture into the mass of twisted,
close-growing stems and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, I heard him
utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from the heart of the brush.
Accordingly, I began to skirt the edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing
earnestly to see if I could not catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was at
the narrowest part of the thicket, he suddenly left it directly opposite,
and then wheeled and stood broadside to me on the hillside, a little
above. He turned his head stiffly toward me; scarlet strings of froth hung
from his lips; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom.

I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point
or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the great bear
turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam
from his mouth, so that I saw the