“That’s comforting knowledge,” she said. “You’ve never told me about the big grizzly that you killed. Was it long ago?”
“Not so very long,” Smith replied, sighing as he saw himself led so far away from the subject nearest his heart, and despairing of working his courage up to it again that day.
“It was a big one, wasn’t it?”
“Well, I got fifty dollars off of a feller for the hide.”
“Tell me about it,” she requested.
Inwardly she wished that Smith would go, so she might take a sleep, but she feared lest he might get back to the subject of houses and wives if she allowed him to depart from bears, and the historic grizzly in particular.
“Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t kill that bear on purpose,” he began. “I didn’t go out huntin’ him, and I didn’t run after him. If he’d minded his own business like I minded mine, he’d be alive today for all I’m concerned.”
“Oh, it was an accident?” she asked.
“Part accident,” Smith replied. “I was a deputy game-warden in them days, and a cowboy on the 277 side, up in the Big Horn Valley. A gang of fellers in knee-pants and yeller leggings come into that country, shootin’ everything that hopped up. Millionaires, I reckon they must ’a’ been, countin’ their guns and the way they left game to rot on the ground. They killed just to kill, and I tracked ’em by the smell of the carcasses behind ’em They made a sneak and got into Yellowstone Park, and there’s where I collared ’em They was all settin’ around a fire one night when I come up to ’em their guns standin’ around. I throwed down on ’em and one fool feller he made a grab for a gun. I always was sorry for that man.”
“What did you do to him?” she asked.