"Then you've had quite a little experience, and I suppose you're a pretty good shot."
"No," said Jack, "I don't think I am much of a shot, but I am pretty patient about waiting around and trying to get the shot I want."
"Ha!" said Mr. Fannin, "that sounds as if you had learned to hunt with the Indians, or at all events with some good hunter."
"Well," said Jack, "I have hunted some with Indians; but the man who taught me whatever I know about hunting is sitting with us now—and that is Hugh."
"Well," said Hugh, "you took to it mighty natural, son. There are lots of people that have had a heap more experience than you have and can't come near you for a hunter."
"Well," said Fannin, "I crossed the plains from Canada in 1861, and of course I did some hunting on the way; but ever since that time I've lived here in the Province, where there's plenty of rough, thick timber, and where much of the hunting is done at short range. There's a great deal of game here, though not of many sorts,—mostly deer and bear, and, high up in the mountains, goats. Farther inland there are sheep, and still beyond that, elk; and then there are elk on Vancouver Island, but I have never seen any of them.
"The bears are plenty, and they make themselves very much at home. It's only a few days since that one of them came out of the woods just back of the hotel and went to the hog-pen and took a pig and walked off with it into the forest. The bear got his pig and nobody ever got him.
"A year or two ago something of that kind happened, and with it one of the funniest things I ever saw. A bear came out and took a pig and went off with it, and an Irishman, working on the place, saw it go. He picked up an axe and ran down to call me. I grabbed my rifle and we both started running into the timber where the bear had disappeared. We could still hear the squealing of the pig. We hadn't got far into the woods before we came upon an immense tree-trunk lying on the ground, which we had to climb over. It was six or eight feet high, and the Irishman got there a little bit ahead of me. Having nothing to carry but his axe, he climbed over first and jumped down on the other side. I was slower in getting up, and when I got on top of the trunk and was just about to jump down, I saw in front of me and walking toward me on its hind legs a big bear. The Irishman was standing under me, backed up against the tree trunk, his hands at his sides and his axe lying at his feet, while the bear was stepping up to him as if he wanted to shake hands. The Irishman was too frightened to yell or do anything. He just backed up against the tree hard. Of course I saw all this at a glance, and I began to laugh so that I could hardly get my gun to my shoulder. But, by the time that the bear was within five or six steps of the Irishman, I realized that something had to be done; and I fired and killed the bear.
"It took that Irishman about an hour to recover from his scare, and it seemed to me that he didn't get his color back for three or four days."
After a little while the party went into the hotel and had their supper and then returned to Fannin's shop. Here, before it grew dark, they saw approaching a tall, oldish, stoop-shouldered man, who walked with a slight halt in his gait. Said Fannin: "Oh! here comes old Meigs. I am glad you are going to meet him. He is an American, an old prospector, who has spent all of his life mining down in Arizona. He got a slight stroke of paralysis three or four years ago. He came up here and is living in a little cabin just below. He is a good fellow and has seen a great deal of western life." As Meigs joined the group Fannin introduced the strangers, and they were soon all talking together.