Part 2 (1/2)

A VERY NARROW SHAVE

One winter's day in San Francisco my friend Halley, an enthusiastic shot who had killed bears in India, cao south I'o south and have so”

In the o--differed widely froe brush of the foot-hills teeeese, duck (canvas-back, eon, and oons and reed-beds, giving s to and fro between the sea and the fresh water; whilst, farther inland, snipe were to be had in the swa” On the plains were antelope, and in the hills and in the Sierra Nevadas, deer and bears, both cinnarizzly

Verily a sportsman's paradise!

The next day saw us on board the little _Arizona_, bound for San Pedro, a forty-hours' trip down the coast We took with us only shot-guns, aeles, the ”Town of the Angels”), we landed, and after a few days' caoons near the sea, where we shot more duck than could easily be disposed of, we made our way to that little old Spanish settley to take us inland

Our first stopping-place was at a sheep-ranche, about fifty rassed and watered, and consisting chiefly of great plains through which flowed a crystal-clear river, and surrounded on very side by the ht

The ranche ned by a Scotsman, and his ”weather-board” house was new and comfortable, but we found ourselves at the mercy of the most conservative of Chinese cooks, whoive us at our meals any of the duck or snipe we shot, but who stuck with unwearying persistency to boiled pork and beans And on boiled pork and beans he rang the changes, ht; that is to say, sometimes it was hot, and sometimes it was cold, but it was ever boiled pork and beans At its best it is not a diet to drea could be done _upon_ it), and as we fancied, after a few days, that any attraction which it inally have possessed had quite faded and died, we resolved to push on elsewhere

The following night we reached a little place at the foot of the higher , indeed, of but one ss, however, were very beautiful, and the presence of a hot sulphur-spring, bubbling up in the scrub not one hundred yards fro natural bath, coupled with the favourable reports of gaot, induced us to stop And life was very pleasant there in the crisp dry air, for the quail shooting was good, the scenery and weather perfect, everything fresh and green and neashed by a two days'

rain, the food well cooked, and, nightly, after our day's shooting, we rolled into the sulphur-spring and luxuriated in the hot water

But Halley's soul began to pine for higher things, for bigger game than quail and duck ”Look here,” he said to me one day, ”this is all very well, you know, but why shouldn't we go after the deer aes loaded with buckshot And, ht,” I said, ”I'rizzlies I'un”

So it was arranged that next uide us, up one of the numerous canons in the mountains, to a place where ere assured deer ca e started, the stars throbbing and winking as they seeaily, up the bed of a creek, stu our shi+ns overstones than one would have believed existed in all creation Just before dahen the grey light was beginning to show us ,in the sand of the creek fresh tracks of a large bear, the water only then beginning to ooze into the prints left by his great feet, and I can hardly say that I gazed on them with the amount of enthusiasm that Halley professed to feel

But bear was not in our contract, and we hurried on another half-et the deer as they ca to a likely spot, where the canon forked, Halley said, ”This looks good enough I'll stop here and send the boy back; you can go up the fork about half adown to wait behind a clump of manzanita scrub, close to a sloomy and impressive a spot as one could find anywhere out of a picture by Dore The so and whispering, leaving overhead but a gap of clear sky; on either hand the rugged sides of the canon sloped steeply up arowth, and never the note of a bird broke a silence which seeh of the wind in the tree tops Minute dragged intodown to drink, and rapidly the stillness and heart-chilling gloo on my nerves; when, far up the steep side of the canon opposite to me there came a faint sound, and a small stone trickled hurriedly down into the water

”At last!” I thought ”At last!” And with a thuer eye I crouched forward, ready to fire, yet feeling soht that the poor beast had no chance of escape Lower and nearer ca still to ave, soe, subdued, half-grunting snuffle was puzzling to senses on the alert for deer Lower and nearer, and then--out into the open by the shalloater he strolled--no deer, but a great grizzly

My first instinct was to fire and ”chance it,” but then in stepped discretion (funk, if you will), and I remembered that at fifteen or twenty yards buckshot would serve no end but to wound and rouse to fury such an anirizzly, who, perhaps of all wild beasts, is the most tenacious of life; and I rehastly wounds, inflicted by grizzlies

My finger left the trigger, and I sat down--discreetly, and with no unnecessary noise He was not in a hurry, but rooted about sedately a up histhe air in a way that made me not unthankful that the faint breeze blew from him to me, and not in the contrary direction

In due tie it seemed--after a false start or two, he went off up strea that this particular spot was, for the present, an unlikely one for deer, followed his exa where we had parted

”I've just seen a grizzly, Halley,” I said