rs there are two species, the black
and the large brown, the former by far the more common of the two.
On the shaggy bottom-lands where berries are plentiful, and along the
rivers while salmon are going up to spawn, the black bear may be found,
fat and at home. Many are killed every year, both for their flesh and
skins. The large brown species likes higher and opener ground. He is
a dangerous animal, a near relative of the famous grizzly, and wise
hunters are very fond of letting him alone.

The towns of Puget Sound are of a very lively, progressive, and aspiring
kind, fortunately with abundance of substance about them to warrant
their ambition and make them grow. Like young sapling sequoias, they
are sending out their roots far and near for nourishment, counting
confidently on longevity and grandeur of stature. Seattle and Tacoma are
at present far in the lead of all others in the race for supremacy,
and these two are keen, active rivals, to all appearances well matched.
Tacoma occupies near the head of the Sound a site of great natural
beauty. It is the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and calls
itself the "City of Destiny." Seattle is also charmingly located about
twenty miles down the Sound from Tacoma, on Elliott Bay. It is the
terminus of the Seattle, Lake Shore, and Eastern Railroad, now in
process of construction, and calls itself the "Queen City of the Sound"
and the "Metropolis of Washington." What the populations of these towns
number I am not able to say with anything like exactness. They are
probably about the same size and they each claim to have about twenty
thousand people; but their figures are so rapidly changing, and so often
mixed up with counts that refer to the future that exact measurements
of either of these places are about as hard to obtain as measurements of
the clouds of a growing storm. Their edges run back for miles into the
woods among the trees and stumps and brush which hide a good many of the
houses and the stakes which mark the lots; so that, without being as yet
very large towns, they seem to fade away into the distance.

But, though young and loose-jointed, they are fast taking on the forms
and manners of old cities, putting on airs, as some would say, like
boys in haste to be men. They are already towns "with all modern
improvements, first-class in every particular," as is said of hotels.
They have electric motors and lights, paved broadways and boulevards,
substantial bu