Let me begin at the beginning of the bear’s year. As most men know, all bears on this continent (except, perhaps, the Polar) lie dormant during the winter. The den, as a rule, is at the head of one of the hundred gulches which seem to radiate from a common source amongst the snow peaks, the grizzly and the cinnamon choosing their lairs at a higher altitude than the black bear. The road to a grizzly’s den, as I remember it, is generally up a snow-slide, through a dense belt of noisy brush, which the weight of the winter’s snow has laid as a thunderstorm lays ripe wheat; and above this belt, under a sheer bluff, sheltered from the wind and hidden by the snow, lies the den itself. Up here, mist and snow, a few stunted pines, and the sleeping bear have the world to themselves from November to April, the exact date of the bear’s retirement to winter quarters, as well as of his reappearance above ground, depending somewhat upon the seasons. This much, at any rate, seems to be generally admitted amongst mountain men--that, some time in November bears begin to ‘hole up,’ the black bears being first and the grizzlies following a week or two later; whilst in spring the grizzlies are up and out before their ‘softer’ cousins. When they first come out of their dens both bears feed entirely upon vegetable matter, even the grizzly being too weak to wander round to look for the carcases of beasts which have perished during the past winter. This he becomes strong enough to do a week or so later, but at first he is every bit as sorry a spectacle as _Ursus americanus_ under similar conditions, being almost too weak to stand, and sitting down to groan and wag his old head from sheer exhaustion after every few yards he walks. If at this time the weather looks unpropitious, both bears not infrequently come to the conclusion that it is not yet time to get up, and therefore turn in for one more nap. In early April (that is, on first leaving their dens) both _Ursus americanus_ and _Ursus horribilis_ frequent the river bottoms to feed upon the rank herbage which grows there; and a little later find food very much to their taste in the young mountain grass which springs wherever the snow leaves the hill-sides bare. It is in April that the hunter gets some of his best chances at bear, for if he be lucky enough to find one of the earliest of these mountain pastures, and patient enough to watch it for a few days, he is almost certain of his reward. At this time, too, a bear is worth killing, for his hide is at its very best when he leaves his winter quarters, though it deteriorates very rapidly as summer advances.