One day Roosevelt and Merrifield separated, but at last Roosevelt heard the familiar long-drawn shout of a cattleman and dashed toward him on his small, wiry cow pony. Merrifield announced that he had seen signs of bears about ten miles distant. They shifted camp at once and rode to the spot where the bear tracks were so plentiful. As Roosevelt came home toward nightfall from a vain hunt, walking through a reach of burned forest, he came across the huge half-human footprints of a great grizzly which had evidently passed a short time before. He followed the tracks in the fading twilight until it became too dark to see them, and had to give up the pursuit as darkness closed in about him. The next day, toward nightfall, as the two men were again returning home without having caught sight of the grizzly, they heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick. It was the grizzly whose tracks they had seen around the remains of a black deer that Merrifield had shot. Again they had to postpone pursuit of him on account of darkness, but they made up their minds that they would get him the next morning. Merrifield was a skilful tracker, and the next day he took up the trail at once where it had been left off. After a few hundred yards the tracks turned off on a well-beaten path made by the elk. The beast’s footprints were plain in the dust. The trail turned off into the tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain that the quarry could be found. Still they followed the tracks, advancing with noiseless caution, climbing over dead tree trunks and upturned stumps and taking care that no branches rustled or caught on their clothes. Suddenly Merrifield sank on one knee, his face ablaze with excitement. Roosevelt strode past him with his rifle at the ready. There, not ten steps off, the great bear rose slowly from his bed among young spruces. He had heard his hunters, but did not know their exact location, for he reared up on his haunches and was sidewise to them. Then suddenly he caught sight of them and dropped on his fores, the hair on his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward them. Roosevelt raised his rifle. The bear’s head was bent slightly down, and when Roosevelt looked squarely into the small, glittering, evil eyes he pulled his trigger. The bear half rose, then toppled over in the death throes. The bullet had gone into his brain. He was the first grizzly Roosevelt had ever seen, and a huge one at that. Naturally, he felt proud that within twenty seconds from the time he had caught sight of the game he had killed it.