The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1918-10-10
BEARS OF. BIG SIZES
The Kadiak is the Largest of His Tribe and Has
Most Disagreeable Temper
BIZ J. W. Stole, in "Outing'

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miles from there. He said that
whenever he saw those lar ge,
warm, bear tracks, and then looked
at his little .3O-3O carbine, it made
him feel like fish out of water.
net an old prospector who had
spent his whole life in looking for
the elusive yellow metal, who told
me that the Kadiak bear, while
ferocious and touchy when shot full
of holes, is very decent and civil
to stranger when the latter minds
his own business and yields the
trail. Although" he added, I
once had a little misunderstanding
with an adult female bear up in
the Talkeetna Mountains that al
most put me out of the prospectin'
bizness. l was comm through a
spruce thicket armed with small
axe and a prospectin' hammer.
The spruce want much higher
than my head and stood thicker
than the hair on a dogs back.
well. sir, all of a sudden I al
most stumbled over a bear cub and
be was so surprised to see me that
he fetched a squeal that brought
his mother up that way without
unnecessary or unavoidable delay.
1t was quite side-hilly, and when I
heerd the old bear come boundin'
an crashin' through the small
spruce, though l couldn't see her,
l was seized with an uncomfortable
impulse to get somewhere where I
could be alone. / hadn't gone more
than eight or ten rod when ] run
plum into another cub and he per-
ceeded to tell his ma about it, and
/ could hear her comm like de-
rallied freight train with the thrOt.
tie wide open.
I was shore plum scairt, but
they want tree in the thicket
big enough to climb, so 1 struck
out again, downhill, hopin' to
avoid meetin' any more cubs till
l got to my camp, but the old bear
heerd me thrashin' through the
brush and instinct or somethin' told
me that she was gainin' on me, so
l slowed down and crawled to one
side and hid, lynn on the ground
all out of breath.
well, sir, that old varmint
went by me like a locomotive and
by the time she put on her brakes
and slowed down, she had lost
scent of me and / felt compare
lively easy. Purity soon I heerd
her call her cubs, and as 1 didn't
hear no more / jedged she'd give
me up, as long as the cubs was
safe. After layin' there for an
hour or more. meditatin' and
feelin' like a boy that's playin'
hockey for the first time, l started
for my camp and made it without
bein' molested again, but l thought
one time there that I wouldn't
have to do any more prospectin'.
II was down to Valdez one sum-
mer. and Teller that kept a hotel
there had a big Kadiak bear
chained to a rock in front of his
place, with a piece of hawser.
Everybody that came in on the
boats from the States went straight
to this hotel, and the bear used to
draw quite a crowd. One day a
slick lookin' Cheechawker got off
the boat with a little dorg that
looked like the pup in the phony-
graft advertisements, and SEEM the
crowd standin' around the bear, he
edged his way in and asked the ho-
tel man if he d mind if he'd sic his
dorg onto his bear.
''Of course the crowd LATED and
the hotel man said that though he'd
just fed the bear, he probably
wouldn't mind chewin' the dorg
fer dessert, so if he didn't mind
losin' his pup, why, 60 ahead. Well,
sir, the old bear was sort of sittin'
on his hams swayin' from side to