Then the vindictive and resolute beast came back to the tree and again reared up against it;this time to receive a bullet that dropped her lifeless.Mr.Whitney then climbed down and walked to where the cub had been sitting as a looker-on.The little animal did not move until he reached out his hand;when it suddenly struck at him like an angry cat,dove into the bushes,and was seen no more.
In the summer of 1888an old-time trapper,named Charley Norton,while on Loon Creek,of the middle fork of the Salmon,meddled with a she and her cubs.She ran at him and with one blow of her paw almost knocked off his lower jaw;yet he recovered,and was alive when I last heard of him.
Yet the very next spring the cowboys with my own wagon on the Little Missouri round-up killed a mother bear which made but little more fight than a coyote.She had two cubs,and was surprised in the early morning on the prairie far from cover.There were eight or ten cowboys together at the time,just starting off on a long circle,and of course they all got down their ropes in a second,and putting spurs to their fiery little horses started toward the bears at a run,shouting and swinging their loops round their heads.For a moment the old she tried to bluster and made a half-hearted threat of charging;but her courage failed before the rapid onslaught of her yelling,rope-swinging assailants;and she took to her heels and galloped off,leaving the cubs to shift for themselves.The cowboys were close behind,however,and after half a mile's run she bolted into a shallow cave or hole in the side of a butte,where she stayed cowering and growling,until one of the men leaped off his horse,ran up to the edge of the hole,and killed her with a single bullet from his revolver,fired so close that the powder burned her hair.The unfortunate cubs were roped,and then so dragged about that they were speedily killed instead of being brought alive to camp,as ought to have been done.
In the cases mentioned above the grisly attacked only after having been itself assailed,or because it feared an assault,for itself or for its young.In the old days,however,it may almost be said that a grisly was more apt to attack than to flee.Lewis and Clarke and the early explorers who immediately succeeded them,as well as the first hunters and trappers,the "Rocky Mountain men"of the early decades of the present century,were repeatedly assailed in this manner;and not a few of the bear hunters of that period found that it was unnecessary to take much trouble about approaching their quarry,as the grisly was usually prompt to accept the challenge and to advance of its own accord,as soon as it discovered the foe.All this is changed now.Yet even at the present day an occasional vicious old bear may be found,in some far-off and little-trod fastness,which still keeps up the former habit of its kind.All old hunters have tales of this sort to relate,the prowess,cunning,strength,and ferocity of the grisly being favorite topics for camp-fire talk throughout the Rockies;but in most cases it is not safe to accept these stories without careful sifting.
Still it is just as unsafe to reject them all.One of my own cowboys was once attacked by a grisly,seemingly in pure wantonness.He was riding up a creek bottom and had just passed a clump of rose and bull-berry bushes when his horse gave such a leap as almost to unseat him,and then darted madly forward.Turning round in the saddle to his utter astonishment he saw a large bear galloping after him,at the horse's heels.For a few jumps the race was close,then the horse drew away and the bear wheeled and went into a thicket of wild plums.The amazed and indignant cowboy,as soon as he could rein in his steed,drew his revolver and rode back to and around the thicket,endeavoring to provoke his late pursuer to come out and try conclusions on more equal terms;but prudent Ephraim had apparently repented of his freak of ferocious bravado,and declined to leave the secure shelter of the jungle.
Other attacks are of a much more explicable nature.Mr.Huffman,the photographer of Miles City,informed me once when butchering some slaughtered elk he was charged twice by a she-bear and two well-grown cubs.This was a piece of sheer bullying,undertaken solely with the purpose of driving away the man and feasting on the carcasses;for in each charge the three bears,after advancing with much blustering,roaring,and growling,halted just before coming to close quarters.In another instance a gentleman I once knew,a Mr.S.Carr.was charged by a grisly from mere ill temper at being disturbed at mealtime.The man was riding up a valley;and the bear was at an elk carcass,near a clump of firs.As soon as it became aware of the approach of the horseman,while he was yet over a hundred yards distant,it jumped on the carcass,looked at him a moment,and then ran straight for him.
There was no particular reason why it should have charged,for it was fat and in good trim,though when killed its head showed scars made by the teeth of rival grislies.Apparently it had been living so well,principally on flesh,that it had become quarrelsome;and perhaps its not over sweet disposition had been soured by combats with others of its own kind.In yet another case,a grisly charged with even less excuse.An old trapper,from whom I occasionally bought fur,was toiling up a mountain pass when he spied a big bear sitting on his haunches on the hill-side above.The trapper shouted and waved his cap;whereupon,to his amazement,the bear uttered a loud "wough"and charged straight down on him--only to fall a victim to misplaced boldness.
