was not in condition. This was sad and illustrated the fact that
it is sometimes best to be alone.

[Illustration: BEAR PATHS, KODIAK ISLAND.]

We next tried Kaguiac Bay and here spent many days. Two bears had been
killed by the natives near the barabara where we camped, and there was
plenty of sign.

Before sunrise we were watching from a good position, and it was
scarcely light when Vacille made out a big bear, two miles or more
away. He was traveling the snow arete of the mountain opposite, and
trying to find a good descent into our valley. One could see the huge
body and head plainly with the naked eye against the sky-line as he made
his way rapidly through the deep snow. Finally he found a place
somewhat bare of snow and gave us a splendid exhibition of rock
climbing. It took little time for him to get down into the alders,
where he apparently dropped asleep. To our astonishment he woke up about
10 o'clock and worked down toward the bottom land. We stalked him in the
woods and alders, which were very thick, within 300 yards, and here I
should have risked a shot at his hindquarters showing up brown against
the hillside, and seemingly as large as a horse.

We chanced a nearer approach, though the wind was treacherous, and
coming up to a spot where we could have viewed him found the monster had
decamped. All attempts to locate him again were fruitless.

The bear paths around this bay were a very interesting study. They are
hammered deep into the earth, and afford as good means of traveling as
the New Brunswick moose paths.

Sometimes instead of a single road we have a double one, the bear using
one path for the legs of each side of his body. Again, on soft mossy
side hills, instead of paths we find single footprints which have been
used over and over, and made into huge saucers, it being the custom of
the bear to take long strides on the side hills, and to step into the
impressions made by other animals which had traveled ahead of it.

The red salmon were beginning to run, and some fishermen in another part
of the bay supplied us, from time to time, from their nets. Especially
good were the salmon heads roasted.

Bear sign failed, and Afognak Island, where Vacille shot and trapped,
had been so much talked about, that I determined to see it for myself,
and with a good wind we rowed across the straits and sailed twelve miles
into the island by Kofikoski Bay.

[Illustration: BEAR PATHS, KODIAK ISLAND.]

Scatt