would not be buried for
months beneath the snow. Winter was at hand in the high country and
all but the Bighorn had deserted it. What with them above me, and the
rest below, I found myself in a no-game zone.

There was no repetition of the frightful sound that had sent me
scurrying for camp. I suspected a bull elk had made it, though I
recognized no resemblance between that hair-raising sound and a bugle.

My thoughts turned to other game. I must have meat--how about a bear?
If I couldn't trap one, perhaps I could shoot one. I got out my
battered old rifle, so like the timberline trees, and boldly set out
for "b'ar." In and out of the dense forest I blundered; crashed
through the tangle at timberline; toiled up the rocky ridges. Up and
up I climbed, paying no heed to the direction of the wind. I found
bear tracks, both large and small, but no sight of Bruin himself.

Discouraged, I lay down to rest and had a nap in the sun. Later, with
the wind in my face, I peeped over a rocky upthrust near a large
snowbank. My eyes bulged, my mouth opened. There was a bear just
ahead. Surely it was mad--crazy--for no animal in its right mind would
do what it was doing.

First it would lumber along a few feet from the edge of the snow,
stopping, sniffing, striking out suddenly with its forepaws; it
repeated this performance again and again. I watched, hypnotized,
unaware of the gun gripped tightly in my hands. Anyhow, who'd want to
eat a mad bear?

A slight sound caused me to turn my head. Twenty feet away another
bear stood regarding me curiously.

Not being absent-minded, I have never been able to understand why I
left my rifle on the mountainside after lugging it up there for an
avowed purpose. At any rate I made record time back to camp, glancing
rearward frequently, to see if the "flock" of bears was pursuing me.

The next day, after surveying the mountainside to make sure that no
bears were lurking there, I went back up and recovered the rifle. The
sand beneath the shelving rock where I had seen the second bear was
disturbed. Claws had rasped it sharply. It appeared as though this
bear had been startled suddenly; had wheeled about and fled for its
life in the opposite direction to that I had taken. The tracks were
small, too, apparently those of a cub. This was my first hear
experience. I had yet to learn that bear are as harmless as deer or
mountain sheep; they attend strictly to their own business