George Haught, on a stand at the apex of the canyon, had heard and seen a big brown bear climbing up through the thicket, and he had overshot and missed.  R.C. had espied a big black bear walking a slide some four hundred yards down the canyon slope, and forgetting that he had a heavy close-range shell in his rifle instead of one of high trajectory, he had aimed accordingly, to undershoot half a foot and thus lose his opportunity.  Nielsen had been lost most of the day.  It seemed everywhere he heard yells and bays down in the canyon, and once he had heard a loud rattling crash of a heavy bear tearing through the thicket.  Edd told of the fearful climb he and his father had made, how they had shot at the grizzly a long way off, how funny another bear had rolled around in his bed across the canyon.  But the hounds got too tired to hold the trails late in the day.  And lastly Edd said:  “When you an’ Ben were smokin’ the grizzly I could hear the bullets hit close above us, an’ I was sure scared stiff for fear you’d roll him down on us.  But father wasn’t scared.  He said, ‘let the old Jasper roll down!  We’ll assassinate him!’”

When the old bear hunter began to tell his part in the day’s adventures my pleasure was tinglingly keen and nothing was wanting on the moment except that my boy Romer was not there to hear.

“Wal, shore it was an old bar day,” said Haught, with quaint satisfaction.  His blue shirt, ragged and torn and black from brush, surely attested to the truth of his words.  “All told we seen five bars.  Two blacks, two browns an’ the old Jasper.  Some of them big fellars, too.  But we missed seein’ the boss bar of this canyon.  When Old Dan opened up first off I wanted Edd to climb thet bluff.  But Edd kept goin’ an’ we lost our chance.  Fer pretty soon we heard a bustin’ of the brush.  My, but thet bar was rockin’ her off.  He knocked the brush like a wild steer, an’ he ran past us close—­not a hundred yards.  I never heard a heavier bar.  But we couldn’t see him.  Then Edd started up, an’ thet bluff was a wolf of a place.  We was half up when I seen the grizzly thet you an’ Ben smoked afterward.  He was far off, but Edd an’ I lammed a couple after him jest for luck.  One of the pups was nippin’ his heels.  Think it was Big Foot....  Wal, thet was all of thet.  We plumb busted ourselves gettin’ on top of the bench to head off your bar.  Only we hadn’t time.  Then we worried along around to the top of thet higher bluff an’ there I was so played-out I thought my day had come.  We kept our eyes peeled, an’ pretty soon I spied a big brown bar actin’ queer in an open spot across the canyon.  Edd seen him too, an’ we argued about what thet bar was doin’.  He lay in a small open place at the foot of a spruce.  He wagged his head slow an’ he made as if to roll over, an’ he stretched his paws, an’ acted shore queer.  Edd said:  ’Thet bar’s crippled.  He’s been shot by one of the boys, an’ he’s tryin’ to get up.’  But I shore didn’t exactly