L98 TRUE BEAR STORIES.

one meal off the carcass. As he might be
expected to return that night, all haste
was made to finish the trap. Bowers rode
out to Gorman’s Station to get some nails
and honey, while the correspondent paid a
visit to one of General Beal’s old corrals
and stole some planks to make a door. He
packed the planks up the mountain, and
was using the hammer and saw with great
diligence and a tremendous amount of
noise, when bruin sauntered down the
ridge, looked curiously at him and calmly
began eating an early supper, wholly in-
different to the noise of the hammer and
the presence of the man.

It was nearly dark when Bowers rode up
to the trap, his horse in a lather composed
of equal parts of perspiration and honey,
the latter having leaked profusely from
the cans tied to the saddle. Tossing the
nails to the correspondent, Bowers hastily
dismounted and went afoot up the ridge
toward the dead steer, intending to place
a can of honey near it. In about a min-