The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1896-08-07

years bear bard on this company Of
gnarled aud shaggy treos burned
brown by immsmorial suns. dwarfod
aud twisted by hot winds from tho
south ia summer and cold blasts from
the north ia winter. II was q relief to
get into the younger world Of the scrub
oak, which never grows to mans es-
tate, where We pitched our tents for
tho first night
"Ihe next day we had established
what We hoped would prove TO be our
permanent camp, on the eastern slope
oiMount Head. From there you can
count seventeen mountain ranges, and
you might have visited them all with.
ont meeting anyone else on like
pilgrimage.
$50 It was q surprise to us, when
we returned to camp one night TO be
winked At by O strange camp fire half
way down the mountain. This did not
please me. / had gone there for sport
and solitude. The one argues the ex-
istenee of the other. The fire had
winked from the same spot for a week,
when We moved on to regions more
remote and savage, where bear tracks
honeycombed the ground, and elk APP
peared and vanished through the
aisles of pine, tossing their great ant
lers like the branches OF an oak
forest.
81 had been out all day, and oddly
enough, seen nothing but porcupine,
which waddled across my trail, fear
aud defiance ludicrously compounded
in his bristliug quilts and hurried
gait The sunsets in the neighbour
hood of Fort Whoop-Up arc magnid-
cent Every night the fires burn over
Crowfoot and Tail Creek, Moosejaw
and Flathead. The peaks of Brown,
Hooker and Rack go from pink and
crimson into gray, but gray without n
hint of coldness-ashes of roses, you
might call it-and then, in an instant,
only the light from the stars marks
the spot where late the splend dor
shone,
81 declare that sounds like poetry, "
Mrs. Jack interrupts herself to ex-
claim, except that it needs something
to go before it;
"Tum ti-tum-ti-tum ti-tum,
Where late the splendor shone
cit won't do in such shape. 1t
reminds one of militia company
without a drum major"
"Never mind" the circle around
Mrs. jack interposes, impatiently
1--WE are anxious to hear the story"
81 never could write poetry" Mrs,
Jack concludes, after more mental
fumbling for something to complete
the couplet.
"Well, I stood overlooking the val
ley. Darkness was creeping up Mount
Head, as the tide comes up the sands
only noiselessly. Nature has too
much to do out there, in the grea
Northwest, to make a fuss over any
thing.
Suddenly heard a cracking il
the bushes below me. A mountain
sheep? Perhaps a grizzly. l was oil
my knees in an instant, with my riff
at full cock.
"My eyes met curious spectacle
Two bear cubs were in the act o
climbing small pine tree who
looked suspiciously top heavy. Some
thing dark lay along the trees TOP
most branch shape which resolved ii
self into the figure of a man dressed i
gray Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers
! golf stockings, and canvas shoes. Th
she bear sat at the foot of the tree
I with an air OF one to whom time is n
a object. One OF the cubs would elm
little way, and as the tree shoot
r ominously, was irresistibly reminde
8 of the story Of the old hunter in lik
, predicament who as the bear neare
: the slender branch upon which h
b hung, cried: You idiot, dou't com
out here. You'll break the branc
G and kill us both
: 81 am very wary of attacking
4 Dear with cubs Jack says my cou
4, 81 -, 20