.

A grizzly had evidently been at the carcass during the preceding night,
for his great footprints were in the ground all around it, and the
carcass itself was gnawed and torn, and partially covered with earth and
leaves--the grizzly has a curious habit of burying all of his prey that
he does not at the moment need.

The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines,
which grow close together, and do not branch out until the stems are
thirty or forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees we walked over
a carpet of pine needles, upon which our moccasined feet made no sound.
The woods seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken now and
then by the strange noises always to be heard in the great pine
forests.

We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until
its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus
supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far
enough to prevent the bear's smelling us, we sat still to wait for his
approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer see the
sights of our rifles. It was useless to wait longer; and we clambered
down and stole out to the edge of the woods. The forest here covered one
side of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side was bare
except for rock and sage-brush. Once out from under the trees there was
still plenty of light, although the sun had set, and we crossed over
some fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched down under a
bush to see if perchance some animal might not also leave the cover.

Again we waited quietly in the growing dusk until the pine trees in our
front blended into one dark, frowning mass. At last, as we were rising
to leave, we heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick, from the
spot where we knew the carcass lay. "Old Ephraim" had come back to the
carcass. A minute afterward, listening with strained ears, we heard him
brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely too dark to go in after him;
but we made up our minds that on the morrow he should be ours.

Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected,
found that the bear had eaten his fill of it during the night. His
tracks showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we
doubted if he had left long before we arrived; and we made up our minds
to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived on these
mountains had eviden