Before I left I made Mrs. Davis and her family a farewell visit.  Two of her daughters were then married and lived near their mother, and all seemed to be in a prosperous condition.  After a pleasant visit with the Davis folks I returned to the fort and commenced making preparations to leave, but was delayed in starting at least a month on account of some soldiers who had served their time out and were going to return with me.  I told my old friend Lieut.  Jackson the day before starting that I did not think that there was another white man in the United States that had seen less of civilization or more of Indian warfare than I had, it now being just thirty-one years since I started out with Uncle Kit Carson onto the plains and into the mountains.

When I left the fort this time it was with the determination that I would not go into the scouting field again, and I have kept my word so far, and think I shall thus continue.  I started out from the fort with twenty-three head of horses, and I packed the baggage of the four discharged soldiers in order to get them to help me with my loose horses.

CHAPTER XLIV.

A Grizzley Hunts the hunter.—­Shooting seals in Alaskan waters.—­I become A Seattle hotel keeper and the big fire closes me out.—­ Some rest.

On my arrival at San Francisco the first thing was to get rid of my surplus horses.  During the time I was selling them I made the acquaintance of a man named Walter Fiske, who was engaged in raising Angora goats, about one hundred and twenty miles north from San Francisco, and who was something of a hunter also.  Mr. Fiske invited me to go home with him and have a bear hunt.

Being tired of the city, I accompanied Mr. Fiske to his ranch.  He said he knew where there was a patch of wild clover on which the grizzlies fed, so we were off for a bear hunt.  We soon found where they fed and watered.  They had a plain trail from their feeding place to the water.  Mr. Fiske being hard of hearing proposed that I stop on the feeding ground and he would take his stand down on the trail, and in case I should get into trouble I could run down the trail, and if he were to get into a tight place he would run up the trail to where I was.  I took my stand and had not been there long until I saw, just behind, in about twenty feet of me, a huge grizzly bear coming for me on his hind feet.  I did not see a tree that I could get behind or climb, so I took out along the trail as fast as I could, the grizzly after me.  For the first fifty yards I had to run up grade and then I turned down hill.  When I reached the top of the hill I commenced to hallo at the top of my voice, “Look out Walter, we are coming!” Walter was sitting only a few steps from the trail and the moment I passed him I heard