p warm.

On May 15, by 4 o'clock, I had finished a hurried breakfast, and with my
two Aleuts had left in the baidarka for our daily watching place. This
was a large mound lying in the center of a valley, some three miles from
where we were camped. On the right of the mound rose a gently sloping
hill with its sides sparsely covered with alders, and at right angles
and before it, extended a rugged mountain ridge with rocky sides
stretching all across our front, while to the left rose another towering
mountain ridge with steep and broken sides. All the surrounding hills
and much of the low country were covered with deep snow. The mountains
on three sides completely hemmed in the valley, and their snowy slopes
gave us an excellent chance to distinguish all tracks. Such were the
grounds which I had been watching for over a month whenever the wind was
favorable.

The sun was just topping the long hill to our right as we reached our
elevated watching place. The glasses were at once in use, and soon an
exclamation from one of my natives told me that new tracks were
seen. There they were--two long unbroken lines leading down from the
mountain on our right, across the valley, and up and out of sight over
the ridge to our left. It seemed as if two bears had simply wandered
across our front, and crossed over the range of mountains into the bay
beyond.

As soon as my hunters saw these tracks they turned to me, and, with
every confidence, said: "I guess catch." Now, it must be remembered that
these tracks led completely over the mountains to our left, and it was
the most beautiful bit of hunting on the part of my natives to know that
these bears would turn and swing back into the valley ahead. To follow
the tracks, which were well up in the heart of our shooting grounds,
would give our wind to all the bears that might be lurking there, and
this my hunters knew perfectly well, yet they never hesitated for one
moment, but started ahead with every confidence.

We threaded our way through a mass of thick alders to the head of the
valley, and then climbing a steep mountain took our stand on a rocky
ridge which commanded a wide view ahead and to our left in the direction
in which the tracks led. We had only been in our new position half an
hour when Nikolai, my head hunter, gripped my arm and pointed high up on
the mountain in the direction in which we had been watching. There I
made out a small black speck, which to the naked eye appe