Bears are especially shy of returning to a carcase when they know that men are about, one grizzly that I know of in British Columbia having defeated a very well-known Indian sportsman by making a circuit round the carcase before coming in to feed. If in that circuit he caught no taint of human kind upon the night air, he used to come in and sup; but if he found that I----y was on guard, he used to go quietly home to a canyon down below, and wait for a more favourable opportunity. The tracks in the morning told the whole story, of course, as plainly as if the unfortunate sportsman had been a witness of the performance. The principal difficulties in this kind of shooting are to keep sufficiently quiet to induce your bear to come, and to see your sights sufficiently to kill him, even at short ranges, when he has come. Go to the spot as lightly clad as possible, carrying any spare things you can on your arm; don’t hurry or overheat yourself on the way to your ambush, and put on a spare flannel shirt or coat, or whatever it is you are carrying, before you begin to feel chilled. Take a little sheet of macintosh with you to secure you a dry seat, and if you have no fancy night sights on your rifle, you can make a rough but serviceable one by twisting white string or cotton with a large knot in it round the muzzle of your rifle, while the thumb and finger of your left hand, as they embrace your rifle barrels, may be held a little apart to make a very coarse backsight. This is only a more or less clumsy Indian device, but it is considerably better than nothing if you get caught in the dark with no better appliances. After all, a sport which keeps you up all night, and in camp without any exercise all day, and which depends for success so entirely upon the good will of the bear, is not one to hanker after. By the way, when you have shot your bear (if you should shoot him), and when you have taken his hide off, be careful how you pack it upon any ordinary pony. A spark applied to a powder magazine is hardly more astounding in its effects than the application of a fresh bear-skin to the back of some of the meekest of cayuses. A perfect Dobbin which belonged to the writer shook his faith in horseflesh for ever by cutting his legs from under him as if they had been carried away by a round shot, merely because Dobbin had been asked somewhat suddenly to carry the hide of a two-year-old black bear. [Illustration: Poor old Sam]