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MacDonald still held his eye to the telescope, as though he had not heard Joanne. Not until the moving object had crossed the skyline, and had disappeared, did he reply to her. "The light's bad, an' you couldn't have made him out very well," he said. "We'll show you plenty o' grizzlies, an' so near you won't want a telescope. Eh, Johnny?"

Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought relief by slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the same spirit which has often moved other men in similar circumstances to go off to the Rockies to shoot grizzlies. To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain.

"Who said it was a grizzly?" retorted Tom. "It might have been a black or brown bear. You've got grizzlies on the brain. The very biggest don't measure more than nine or ten feet from the nose to the root of the tail. Allowing a couple of feet more for his reach, and you have eleven or twelve altogether. How do you account for the other four or five?

The moose, however, had mostly pushed down to the lower levels. The grizzlies had gone into hibernation, and their tracks were no longer to be seen in the snow; but the wolf pack still ran the ridges. And one day they had a miniature adventure that concerned the gray band.

In my dreams back on the farm, my only fear had been lest all the grizzlies be killed before I reached the Rockies; barring such dire calamity, I had never had a doubt of my prowess. But somehow, when at last I found myself alone in the dark forest, it seemed the better part of valor to postpone the actual encounters until I should become more skillful with my old black-powder rifle.

The web-footed snow-shoes of New England could not be used with advantage in such snow, so recourse was had to skis. But it was difficult to manage these upon the steep trails of the cañons, so that people generally were content to hibernate like grizzlies.

With this idea in my mind I hastily produced the metal cup of my flask, and striking it furiously with the hilt of my hunting-knife, I continued to produce a din which ought to have taken effect upon my four-footed adversary. I am sorry to say it did not, however. Uttering the curious sound peculiar to grizzlies, the brute made as though it would approach still closer.

That trail led around the basin and back near to us, up the thick green slope, where high up near a ledge we heard the pack jump this bear. It sounded to us as if he had been roused out of a sleep. "I'll bet it's one of the big grizzlies we've heard about," said Teague. That was something to my taste. I have seen a few grizzlies.

"Ah, yes, that courage is a good weapon with which to adventure in this America of the Grizzled Bear, Mademoiselle," I found the strange man saying to me with a nice amusement as well as interest. "My father had shot seven grizzlies before his twenty-first birthday.

British Columbia, western Alberta and the coast mountains at least as far as Skaguay, and Yukon Territory generally, all contain grizzlies, and the sportsman who goes out for sheep, caribou and moose is reasonably certain to see half a dozen bears and kill at least one or two.