BLACK SHE-BEAR WITH WHITE YEARLING 121

they rode along the trail, often never even taking a
portion of the meat of an animal they had killed, to say
nothing of following a wounded one to put it out of its
misery. Pure, unadulterated, wanton slaughter created
terrible havoc. This sort of thing went on for a month
or two until at last the decent element made itself felt in
a forcible way ; but in the meantime irreparable damage
had been done. In the end a force of police made a
systematic round-up of revolvers, and a fine haul resulted.

This does not sound much like the bear story it was
my intention to tell you, so I will hark back to it again.
One morning, some time towards the end of May, I went
out to look for our horses, which we had not seen for
several days, but which we knew were somewhere back
up on the bunch-grass range. As there were numbers
of coyotes about I threw my rifle over my shoulder. At
that time I used a 45-90 Winchester, my partner having
a 45-70 of the same make, and it was our rule always to
keep the breeches empty but the magazines full, so that,
in the event of either of us wanting to shoot in a hurry,
all we had to do was work the lever and fire. It was
also a strict rule, to which we had both carefully adhered
hitherto, that each man kept his rifle on his own side of
the tent, and that neither of us touched the other’s without
permission. Consequently, when I left camp I did so
under the impression that there were the eight cartridges
in the magazine that should be there. That I did not
examine it to make sure of this was most unfortunate, as
you will hear later on.

After travelling for nearly two hours straight back over
the range I lost all trace of the horses, which I had been
able to track for the greater part of the time; it was then
apparent that they had doubled back. Just when I had
made up my mind it was time for me to circle I spotted
a black bear. She was lying down, stretched out to her
full length, at the edge of some timber which extended
away down a side hill for about half a mile into a wide
valley, the bottom of which was cut up with gulches and
covered with thick brush; above her the hill rose steeply