As the westering sun sank out of sight beyond the mountains these sounds of bird-life gradually died away.  Under the great pines the evening was still with the silence of primeval desolation.  The sense of sadness and loneliness, the melancholy of the wilderness, came over me like a spell.  Every slight noise made my pulses throb as I lay motionless on the rock gazing intently into the gathering gloom.  I began to fear that it would grow too dark to shoot before the grisly came.

Suddenly and without warning, the great bear stepped out of the bushes and trod across the pine needles with such swift and silent footsteps that its bulk seemed unreal.  It was very cautious, continually halting to peer around; and once it stood up on its hind legs and looked long down the valley towards the red west.  As it reached the carcass I put a bullet between its shoulders.  It rolled over, while the woods resounded with its savage roaring.  Immediately it struggled to its feet and staggered off; and fell again to the next shot, squalling and yelling.  Twice this was repeated; the brute being one of those bears which greet every wound with a great outcry, and sometimes seem to lose their feet when hit—­although they will occasionally fight as savagely as their more silent brethren.  In this case the wounds were mortal, and the bear died before reaching the edge of the thicket.

I spent much of the fall of 1889 hunting on the head-waters of the Salmon and Snake in Idaho, and along the Montana boundary line from the Big Hole Basin and the head of the Wisdom River to the neighborhood of Red Rock Pass and to the north and west of Henry’s Lake.  During the last fortnight my companion was the old mountain man, already mentioned, named Griffeth or Griffin—­I cannot tell which, as he was always called either “Hank” or “Griff.”  He was a crabbedly honest old fellow, and a very skilful hunter; but he was worn out with age and rheumatism, and his temper had failed even faster than his bodily strength.  He showed me a greater variety of game than I had ever seen before in so short a time; nor did I ever before or after make so successful a hunt.  But he was an exceedingly disagreeable companion on account of his surly, moody ways.  I generally had to get up first, to kindle the fire and make ready breakfast, and he was very quarrelsome.  Finally, during my absence from camp one day, while not very far from Red Rock pass, he found my whisky-flask, which I kept purely for emergencies, and drank all the contents.  When I came back he was quite drunk.  This was unbearable, and after some high words I left him, and struck off homeward through the woods on my own account.  We had with us four pack and saddle horses; and of these I took a very intelligent and gentle little bronco mare, which possessed the invaluable trait of always staying near camp, even when not hobbled.  I was not hampered with much of an outfit, having only my buffalo sleeping-bag, a fur coat, and my washing