The Florence daily tribune., 1902-06-17
We Killed a Bear-"Nit." ("

| woods for II few DAYS, and finally pre-
vailed upon me to go along. Mike
was Irish by birth and temperament
and one of the best natural gated
prevaricators | ever met. eth game
is that thick averIed the faithful
Mike ''ye have to climb tree at
noight to kape from bein thrampled
on; an as fer fish the wather is that
full of them thet whin We hook wan,
"a larger one swallies i'm an so on un-
til they git to big ye need windlass
an cable fer to drag thin from their
wathery graves. 'Tis so.
We set out early one morning accom-
panied by Pat, Mikes brother, two
deer hounds and pack horse. On
the way we We're Joined by two
farmer boys, one of whom turned
out to be IA great coward in the dark.
Our destination was Lake Sawyer about
thirty miles from Seattle, and the last
half of the way was along fiayed
trail. The woods were so full of
devil clubs. solid brush and black kber-
ry vines that travelling outside of
a beaten trail was very slow work.
Fallen trees lay across the way, which
we scrambled over or under the pack
horse following like IA dog. | was
armed with 44-calibre Colts repeat
ing rifle, which | imagined was tine
most deadly weapon ever placed upon
the market My only grounds for
such belief was ownership and the fact
that when in active eruption the en-
tire contents of maagzine and barrel
could be discharged in rag time.
Mike had u poor opinion of my gun,
'Phwat would ye do should ye meet
bear in yer presint detinceless con
dition p he asked.
''Shoot i'm, " | responded loftily.
Take my advice" he said IAN
don't go aggravatin bear with that
pea shooter fer fear he might get hos
tile an do you some harm.
Huh" | responded, I'D make
him swallow a stream of hot lead -
Yes, he retorted, ''tis noice
way fer to threat dunn brute; pour
melted lead down his throat an burn
the insides out of his stummick. 'Tis
tn only way though ye could get pen
etration ~
We arrived before dark and made
camp by II spring on the shore of the
lake. One of our farmer boys was in
tensely afraid of caugars, so of course
we told all the yarns we could think
of about the cunning and ferocity of
the animals. We took turns of sneak
ing away from camp during the night
and making hideous noises for his
especial benefit
--=------------H' H's'rTIs -crv pTruuffuI
and the hounds were running every
day, but we saw nothing larger than
grouse. There seemed to be plenty
of fish in the lake, but we had
tackle. We stayed until our food sup
ply dwindled to small quantity of
flour, aud then turned our faces home
ward. At noon we camped near de-
ing -four into paste we baked it in "A
frying pan. After eating my share,
L wandered away in search of black
berries while the others lay around
their deadly work, and all the big
timber had been logged out. In
that country they cut the trees 10 or
lS feet above the ground IN order to
avoid rotten butts These stumps
are offsA 20 or % feet in diameter
and blackberries usually thrive about
IN. As ! approached particu-
larly large one, ! heard rnstling and
grunting from the opposite side.
'Aha!" | exclaimed, there is u pig
gle which has wandered from its own
tireside. Watch me scare him
Cautiously / drew near and prepared
to jump out with loud 'woof.
jumped all right, but it was straight
up, and said wow instead Of
"'woof, A large bear of the male
variety sat up and snorted My hair
Idiscu ~ last IL looh me IlBIlt hlohBi
and the next thing | knew | was hang
ing onto the top of the stump to keep
from going over on the other side,
Mr. Bruin seemed interested for he
Strengthened up and grinned, His
head seemed toy come uucomfortably
near my roosting place when lie stood
erect, and | began to look for tall tim
Der which could be climbed with con-
siderable promptness. After walking
about my position his bearship sat
down and began to sway his body to
and fro. took time to note that a
birdseye view of healthy, uneducated