ALASKAN BEAR. 149

did not hibernate, as other bears in that
region do. He may have been a sort of
crank, No one who knew about him, or
who had been in camp long, would hurt
him; but a crowd of strangers, passing up
the trail near our Klondike cabin, saw him,
and as he did not try to get away he was
soon dead. He weighed 400 pounds, and
they sold him where he lay for one dollar
a pound.

I fell in with a famous bear-hunter, a
few miles up from the mouth of the Klon-
dike early in September, before the snow
fell, and with him made a short hunt. He
has wonderful bear sense. He has but one
eye and but one side of a face, the rest of
him having been knocked off by the slash:
of a bear’s paw. He is known as Bear Bill.

The moss is very deep and thick and
elastic in that region, so that no tracks are
made except in a worn trail. But Bill saw
where a bit of moss had been disturbed
away up on a mountain side, and he sat
right down and turned his one eye and all