The brute was evidently roaming restlessly about in search of a winter den, but willing, in passing, to pick up any food that lay handy.

At once I took the trail, travelling above and to one side, and keeping a sharp look-out ahead.

The bear was going across wind, and this made my task easy.

I walked rapidly, though cautiously; and it was only in crossing the large patches of bare ground that I had to fear making a noise.
Elsewhere the snow muffled my footsteps, and made the trail so plain that I scarcely had to waste a glance upon it, bending my eyes always to the front.
At last, peering cautiously over a ridge crowned with broken rocks, I saw my quarry, a big, burly bear, with silvered fur.

He had halted on an open hillside, and was busily digging up the caches of some rock gophers or squirrels.