d bit
for the wound,[4] which told me my bullet was well placed; but she kept
her feet and made a dash for the thicket. I was well above, and so
commanded a fairly clear view as she crashed through the leafless
alders. Twice more I fired, and each time with the most careful aim. At
the last shot she dropped with an angry moan. My hunters shook my hand,
and their faces told me how glad they were at my final success after so
many long weeks of persistent work. Including the time spent last year
and this year, this bear represented eighty-seven days of actual
hunting.

[Footnote 4: When a bullet strikes a Kadiak bear, he will always bite
for the wound and utter a deep and angry growl; whereas of the eleven
bears which my friend and I shot on the Alaska peninsula, although they,
too, bit for the wound, not one uttered a sound.]

I at once started down to look at the bear, when out upon the mountain
opposite the bull was seen. He had heard the shots and was now once
more but a moving black speck on the snow, but it will always be a
mystery to me how he could have heard the three reports of my small-bore
rifle so far away and against a strong wind. My natives suggested that
the shots must have echoed, and in this I think they were right; but
even then it shows how abnormally the sense of hearing has been
developed in these bears.

I was sorry to find that the small-bore rifle did not give as great a
shock as I had expected, for my first two bullets had gone through the
bear's lungs and heart without knocking her off her feet.

The bear was a female, as we had supposed, but judging from what my
natives said, only of medium size. She measured 6 feet 4 inches in a
straight line between the nose and the end of the vertebrae, and 44-5/8
inches at the shoulders. The fur was in prime condition, and of an
average length of 4-1/2 inches, but over the shoulders the mane was two
inches longer. Unfortunately, as in many of the spring skins, there was
a large patch over the rump apparently much rubbed. The general belief
is that these worn patches are made by the bears sliding down hill on
their haunches on the snow; but my natives have a theory that this is
caused by the bears' pelt freezing to their dens and being torn off when
they wake from their winter's sleep.

Although this female was not large for a Kadiak bear, as was proved by
one I shot later in the season, I was much pleased with my final
success, and our camp that night