It was 8 o'clock when we first located the bears, and for nearly three hours I had a chance to watch one or both of them through powerful glasses. The sun had come up clear and strong, melting the crust upon the snow, so that as soon as the female bear reached the steep mountain side her downward path was not an easy one. At each step she would sink up to her belly, and at times would slip and fall, turning somersault after somersault; now and again she would be buried in the snow so deep that it seemed impossible for her to go either ahead or backward. Then she would roll over on her back, and, loosening her hold on the steep hillside, would come tumbling and slipping down, turning over and over, sideways and endways, until she caught herself by spreading out all four legs. In this way she came with each step and turn nearer and nearer. Finally she reached an open patch on the hillside, where she began to feed, digging up the roots of the salmon-berry bushes at the edge of the snow. If now I lost sight of her for a short time, it was very difficult to pick her up again even with the glasses, so perfectly did the light tawny yellows and browns of her coat blend in with the dead grass of the place on which she was feeding. The wind had been blowing in our favor all the morning, and for once continued true and steady. But how closely we watched the clouds, to see that no change in its direction threatened us. We waited until the bear had left the snow and was quietly feeding before we made a move, and then we slowly worked ahead and downward, taking up a new position on a small ridge which was well to leeward, but still on the opposite side of the valley from the bear. She seemed in an excellent position for a stalk, and had I been alone I should have tried it. But the Aleut mode of hunting is to study the direction in which your game is working, and then take up a position which it will naturally approach. Taking our stand, we waited, watching with much interest the great ungainly creature as she kept nibbling the young grass and digging up roots. At times she would seem to be heading in our direction, and then again would turn and slowly feed away. Suddenly something seemed to alarm her, for she made a dash of some fifty yards down the valley, and then, seeming to recover her composure, began to feed again, all the while working nearer and nearer. The bear was now well down in the bottom of the valley, which was at this point covered with alders and intersected by a small stream. There were open patches in the underbrush, and it was my intention to shoot when she passed through one of these, for the ground was covered with over a foot of snow, which would offer a very tempting background.