68 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

of such. He is even ready to give, free of charge, the native recipe against receiving mortal wounds in those encounters. As soon as a black bear you thought

dead jumps at you, be careful to seize his ears and

keep his mouth away from your face, neck and chest! Here we have the classical teneo lupum auribus® with the change of one single word.

Black bears, therefore, are to the Indian something like the means of qualifying for the diploma of hunter. This is not so with the grizzly, which to the Indian is not a bear, but a most ferocious animal of another kind. This is shunned by all sensible people, unless they are well armed, in company, or exceptionally cool.

Shall we now furnish the reader with something concerning the “ manners and customs” of that monster such as our friend personally noticed? We find in one of his geographical papers* an account of some experiences in this respect a brief outline of which may prove seasonable, since we have undertaken to speak mostly of brutes in this chapter.

We are on a 16th of September, near the western

end of a dark-water lake called St. M ary’s, or Tsistlatha.

Father Morice and crew have not seen anybody for days as they travel in their little canoe. Ali the greater reason for repairing to the northern shore, where clouds of smoke are noticed. Quite a crowd of squaws are there, but not one man is to be seen on the flat where they dry up for the winter the berries they have just collected.

‘Where are the men?” the travellers ask as soon as they get within speaking distance.

“The men? Why, don’t you know the news?”

5 “TI hold the wolf by the ears,” } 4 Du Lac Stuart al’Ocean Pacifique, pp. 30-34; Neufchatel (Switzer- land), 1904,

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