On May 15, by 4 o’clock, I had finished a hurried breakfast, and with my two Aleuts had left in the baidarka for our daily watching place.  This was a large mound lying in the center of a valley, some three miles from where we were camped.  On the right of the mound rose a gently sloping hill with its sides sparsely covered with alders, and at right angles and before it, extended a rugged mountain ridge with rocky sides stretching all across our front, while to the left rose another towering mountain ridge with steep and broken sides.  All the surrounding hills and much of the low country were covered with deep snow.  The mountains on three sides completely hemmed in the valley, and their snowy slopes gave us an excellent chance to distinguish all tracks.  Such were the grounds which I had been watching for over a month whenever the wind was favorable.

The sun was just topping the long hill to our right as we reached our elevated watching place.  The glasses were at once in use, and soon an exclamation from one of my natives told me that new tracks were seen.  There they were—­two long unbroken lines leading down from the mountain on our right, across the valley, and up and out of sight over the ridge to our left.  It seemed as if two bears had simply wandered across our front, and crossed over the range of mountains into the bay beyond.

As soon as my hunters saw these tracks they turned to me, and, with every confidence, said:  “I guess catch.”  Now, it must be remembered that these tracks led completely over the mountains to our left, and it was the most beautiful bit of hunting on the part of my natives to know that these bears would turn and swing back into the valley ahead.  To follow the tracks, which were well up in the heart of our shooting grounds, would give our wind to all the bears that might be lurking there, and this my hunters knew perfectly well, yet they never hesitated for one moment, but started ahead with every confidence.

We threaded our way through a mass of thick alders to the head of the valley, and then climbing a steep mountain took our stand on a rocky ridge which commanded a wide view ahead and to our left in the direction in which the tracks led.  We had only been in our new position half an hour when Nikolai, my head hunter, gripped my arm and pointed high up on the mountain in the direction in which we had been watching.  There I made out a small black speck, which to the naked eye appeared but a bit of dark rock protruding through the snow.  Taking the glasses I made out a large bear slowly floundering ahead, and evidently coming downward.  His coat seemed very dark against the white background, and he was unquestionably a bull of great size.  Shortly after I had the satisfaction of seeing a second bear, which the first was evidently following.  This was, without doubt, a female, by no means so large as the first, and much lighter in color.  The smaller bear was apparently hungry,