This bear had had an encounter with a porcupine. One of his paws was filled with quills, and in skinning him we found that some quills had worked well up the leg and lodged by the ankle joint, making a most loathsome wound.
This bear was almost as large as the one I had last shot at the head of the bay, and his pelt made a grand trophy. I was much disgusted with myself that afternoon for missing my first shot. It is not enough simply to get your bear, but one should always endeavor to kill with the first shot, otherwise much game will be lost, for the first is almost always the easiest shot, hence one should kill or mortally wound at that chance.
This was the last bear that we shot on the Alaska Peninsula. I had been fortunate in killing seven brown bears, while Blake had killed three brown and one black, and our natives had killed one brown and one black bear, making a total of thirteen between the 7th and 28th of June.
The skulls of these brown bears we sent to Dr. Merriam, Chief of the Biological Survey, at Washington, and they proved to be most interesting from a scientific point of view, for from them the classification of the bears of the Alaska Peninsula has been entirely changed, and it seems that we were fortunate enough to bring out material enough to establish a new species as well as a new sub-species.
The teeth of these two kinds of bears show a marked and uniform difference, proving conclusively that there is no interbreeding between the species. I was told by Dr. Merriam that the idea which is so commonly believed, that different species of bears interbreed like dogs, is entirely wrong.
III.
MY BIG BEAR OF SHUYAK
As I had been fortunate in shooting bears upon the Island of Kadiak and the Alaska Peninsula, nothing remained but for me to obtain a specimen from one of the outlying islands of the Kadiak group, to render my trip in every way successful.
I therefore determined to take my two natives and hunt from a baidarka the deep bays of the Island of Afognak, while Blake, not yet having obtained his bear from Kadiak, went back to hunt there.
He had been extremely good to his men, and in settling with them on his return from the Alaska Peninsula had good-naturedly paid the excessive demands they made. The result was that his kindness was mistaken for weakness, and just as he was about to leave his hunters struck for an increase of pay. He sent them to the right-about, and fortunately succeeded in filling their places.