rom the unobstructed
side.

The trapper had further plans. Close beside the logs grew a stunted
pine tree with wide-spreading limbs near the ground. In its crotch he
placed the cow's skull, higher than the bear could reach, and fastened
it there with wire. Then, after setting the traps in a semi-circle
around the tree, just below the skull, and concealing them carefully,
we returned to camp, jubilantly confident of catching Mr. Bruin.

Three times we visited the set and found things undisturbed. We
decided the bear had forsworn his toy and run away. However, I
lingered at the camp in hope that the matter would yet come to a
decisive end.

Some days later, when we visited the gulch again, we came upon a
surprise. From a distance we missed the skull from the tree. So we
hastened forward, keeping a sharp eye out for the bear which we felt
certain was in a trap and lying low. At the set we stopped short. The
two traps nearest the open space had been carefully dug up and turned
over, and lay "butter side down." The bear had climbed into the tree,
wrenched his plaything free, and dropped it to the ground. Tracks in
the sand showed that after climbing down he had cautiously placed his
feet in the same tracks he had made when he advanced toward the tree.

He had carried the skull a hundred yards from the traps and hidden it
again; but there were no signs that he had stopped to play with it.

The trapper was as good as his word; and after recovering from his
astonishment, he sprung the traps, and we carried them back to camp.

"Some smart, that ole twisted-foot bear," the trapper told his partner.
"He's smart enough to live a hundred years--an' I'm willin' to let him."

No campfire is complete without bear stories, and it was around one
that I heard the funniest bear story imaginable.

A lone trapper was caught one day in a trap of his own making, a
ponderous wooden coop calculated to catch the bear alive by dropping a
heavy log door in place at the open end. This door was on a trigger
which a bear, in attempting to steal the bait, would spring.

As this tale was told, the trapper had just completed his trap and was
adjusting the trigger, when the heavy door crashed down, pinning him
across the threshold, with his legs outside. The door caught on a
section of log in the doorway, and saved him from broken legs, but he
was a helpless prisoner.

In struggling to free himself, he kicked over a can of honey he