,
Aleut for bear. The air was dead calm. Hardly were the men on their
perches, before they saw a bear walk into the brush on one side of the
valley. We waited quietly, in the midst of mosquitoes, but nothing came
in sight. It was already after 10 o'clock, and so dark that the men
gave up their watch, and came down to join me. Suddenly we heard a sharp
screech up the stream, and when it was repeated, Vacille said it must be
a young bear crying because its mother would not feed it fast
enough. Here Vacille did some good work.

We walked rapidly up stream, through the thick brush, and before we had
gone 100 yards heard a large animal, just ahead, moving about in the
brush, and making a good deal of noise. I started ahead to get a view,
thinking we had disturbed the bear, but Vacille held me back. We walked
on noiselessly to a little bare point in the stream, and just then the
bear appeared, bent on fishing, thirty feet away. She lumbered down into
the stream, and when I fired fell into the water, the ball just missing
her shoulder. She was up again, and this time I shot hurriedly, and a
little behind the ribs. She ran, crossing up about forty feet away, and
a trial with the .30-40 scored, but made no impression.

Tchort caught up with her just as she fell, after running a hundred feet
or more, and gave us to understand that he was the responsible party. We
tried immediately to capture the cub, which would have been a rare
prize, but had no success at all in the thicket. The old one, though of
considerable age, was not a large specimen, and, with the exception of
the head, the hair was in bad condition. Length about 6 feet 4 inches;
height at shoulder 44 inches; weight 500 pounds. The stomach was full of
salmon, gleaned from the fishing beds made all along the stream. The
Ozinka people did not enjoy my killing a bear just outside the village.

I caught the boat about a week later, after a few pleasant days with
Kidder and Blake, who had turned up at Wood Island, after a very
successful hunt on the mainland.

A word in regard to the Kadiak bear. Dr. Merriam has proved that he is
distinct from other bear. That he ever reached 2,000 pounds is doubtful
in my mind, but, by comparing measurements of skins, we can be sure he
comes up to 1,200, or a little over. Whether the Kadiak bear is bigger
than the big brown bear of the mainland is doubtful. At present the
growth of these bears is badly interfered with by the natives, and