190 TRUE BEAR STORIES.

carried it into the mountains and killed it.

On the ist of August, the report reached
camp that the bears were having a picnic
on the Mutaw ranch and were killing hogs
by the score. John F. Cuddy’s sons, the
best vaqueros and bronco-riders in this
part of the country, offered to go over to
the Mutaw with the correspondent and
lasso a bear if one could be found on open
ground; accordingly, the party saddled up
and took the trail up the Piru, arriving
at the Mutaw meadows late in the night,
after a rough ride of twenty miles.

In the morning Mr. Taylor, one of the
owners of the ranch, was found skinning
a grizzly that had eaten strychnine in pork
during the night. Mr. Taylor had put poi-
son out all over the ranch and the prospect
of catching a live bear seemed dubicus, but
all the poisoned meat that could be found
was buried at once, and Bowers and the
correspondent began building a trap to
catch a bear that had been making twelve.
inch tracks around the cabins. The Cuddy