repeatedly over this same part of the park and never had the faintest glimpse of those herds or any part of them again, and only an occasional deer. For two weeks during the first part of the season, at about the same hour in the early morning, 5:30 A. M., a herd of deer came along under the front windows of the hotel-but sometimes not so close. All were fully grown and with head up and coat looking like they had been manicured that very morning. One morning the second porter came rushing around the hotel corner with a kodak; for a snapshot, scaring them so badly that they came no more. I was disappointed, as I always enjoyed seeing, and looking over their symmetrical graceful lines, and their wild pretty brown eyes and shy ways appealed to me. There was another visitor that regularly for more than a month came each morning to the back door of the Hash Emporium where the drivers and stable men were fed. It was only a short distance from the hotel. This was a fine full grown female elk. No one seemed to know much about her, but there was rumor to the effect that she had been disabled in some way when very young and had been nursed and fed by one of the caretakers who stay at each of the hotels during the nine months of the year when there is nothing but snow, ice and water in the park. She was supposed to have a calf somewhere out in the wilds, but no one had the temerity or sense to go out and look for it. She was fully grown and a superb specimen. She never came closer than thirty feet from the back door, that seeming to be her limit. Someone was always on hand with a plate of biscuit, of which she was very fond. I have gone over a number of times and tried my hardest to even touch some part of that elk besides her tongue, lips or nose. But it was all in vain, for try as I would I could never succeed in touching any other part. All of these members were freely proffered for the tempting biscuits. I never got my hand on her, so I could know what her coat of hair felt like. She would dodge like a flash. Just so far and no farther, was her motto. And I succeeded just as well the first as the last time. She would follow that biscuit closely with her nose, long tongue and big eyes, but would stand for no liberties anywhere else. I finally gave it up and when I fed her lows. These were shortly followed by three Silver Tips. They were all fully grown. Cubs seemed scarce that day. As I sat there all my long ago boyish ideals about bears came back to mestories of all that bears had done, their great strength, what they could do, all came staring me in the face and daring me to try not to realize that these were bears in their natural haunts. I could see a lot more snouts barely showing back of the others, afraid to come out. I was on a bench a little back in the woods, but could see out all. right. The bears kept coming my way, turning over everything and getting a little closer all after that I did it the easiest way. She was a noble beast; fat and smooth-haired but lacking the pretty, soft brown eye of her relative, the deer. I took a book one day and went out to what is called the Bear Dump, about a quarter of a mile from the hotel. This is a clearing with woods on all sides, where the garbage from the hotel tables is thrown out free for all comers, but is mostly patronized by the bears. I timed it so that it was their usual visiting time and did not have to wait long. First came two black bears. Pretty soon a little further on came three big brown fel the time. One of them, especially, seemed fond of my location. I at once gave him my undivided attention. But just as I was about to go away from there something happened. Every bear was rigid, on his hind feet, with every snout pointed in the same direction. While I was still staring, here came two lumbering monstrous Grizzlies. Neither showed any signs of friendliness and they were not pleasant to look at. The effect of their entrance upon this peaceful scene was galvanic. Away went every bear at top speed. That long, awkward gallop of theirs gets them over the ground surprisingly fast and soon lost them in the woods. I can now understand why the bear hunters say it takes a good horse to keep a bear in sight. I also believe it to be true when they claim a bear can run faster up hill than down or on a level. Part of the retreating force climbed trees and the rest were swallowed up in the woods. A Grizzly cannot climb a treeat least he never does. I never realized before what a terror a Grizzly is to the rest of the bear family. The new arrivals did not tarry long, just nosed around a little and with a sweet consciousness of a duty well performed, vanished. The bears that had advanced backward in such haste soon returned, bringing a number of their intimate friends with them. When I saw those bears for the first time, while everything was new to me, come sauntering from different directions into the dump, with their sniffy, suspicious snouts in the air, it made me think of what I used to read when I was a boy, and the blood-curdling bear hunting stories until my hair stood straight up and the ends split. I went out to the dump one day and found a big steel cage almost as large as the cages that confine the bears under the big circus tent. It was really a trap and I became fully convinced before many days that it was strong and big enough to hold any size bear that the big door thudded behind. All hope abandons any bear that entered there. going back to the hotel I learned that the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C., had sent out for as good a specimen of the Cinnamon bear as could be procured and that trap was the first step towards the filling of the order. On On the afternoon of the second day I went out to the dump and seeing a group of bears very much excited about something, I ventured a closer investigation. The bears all left at my approach and I found that big cage filled by a Cinnamon bear. The men in charge had evidently been trying to get him changed into something that they could haul him away in, but for the time being had given it up as a bad job. How that rascal did make things hum, soon raised the hum to a full whistle. He shook that cage like it was thistledown and told me in a very ugly way what he thought of me. He seemed to have the whole thing studied out and wanted to get rid of it. He was one mass of white lather. I tried to push a flat basin of fresh water nearer the cage, using a pole a little less than forty feet long, but he let loose such a bunch of snarls and had such a paroxysm of rage while his long, ugly claws came outside so much farther than I ever thought they could, that I really wanted him taken out of the park. I dropped my pole, backed out, turned around and went away. It must have been at this dump that the bears got the tin cans on their feet that the late Theodore Roosevelt, while President, wrote to John Burroughs about and which is published in Natural History, a journal published by the Museum of Natural History, New York. I give that part of it relating to the bears here in insert letter: White House, Washington, Dear Old John I I think that nothing is more amusing and interesting than the development of the changes made in wild beast character by the wholly unprecedented course of things in the Yellowstone Park. have just had a letter from Buffalo Jones, describing his experiences in trying to get tin cans off the feet of the bears in the Yellowstone Park. There are lots of tin cans in the garbage heaps which the bears muss over, and it has now become fairly common for a bear to get his paw so caught in a tin can that he cannot get it off and of course great pain and injury follow. Buffalo Jones was sent with another scout to capture, tie up and cure these bears. He roped two and got the can off of one, but the other tore himself loose, can and all, and escaped. Think of the Grizzly bear of the early Rocky Mountain hunters and explorers, |