Bears I Have Met—and Others

nter of all advantage in respect of weapons and reversed their positions instantly, the bear becoming the hunter and the man the game. In early days, also

animals of high intelligence and well-developed individuality, are utterly valueless. I have found the Grizzly more intelligent than other American bears and his individual characteristics more marked and varied, and therefore am disinclined to formulate or accept any rules of conduct for him under given circumstances. No man can say what a Grizzly will or will not do, when molested or enco

her injury. That belief or theory has been held from the earliest times, and it is by no means certain that it is a mere idle tale or bit of nursery lore. Aesop uses it in one of his fables. Two men are assailed by a bear, and one climbs a tree while the other throws himself upon the ground and feigns death. The bear sniffs at the man on the ground, who hold

rict, came into my camp on a pitch dark night, and as it would have been futile to attempt to draw a bead on him and a fight would have endangered two members of the party who were incapable of defending themselves, I cau

urs again the bear might forget his presence and step upon him. Snedden tried furtively to draw his rifle out from the blankets in which he had enveloped it, but found that he could not get the weapon, without attracting the bear's attention and probably provoking immediate attack. So he abandoned the attempt, kept perfectly still and watched the bear with half-closed eyes. The Grizzly realized that the meat was beyond h

pon a sleeping person by a bear, or for that matter by any other of the large carnivorae of this country. Only

Grizzly ceased his attack when satisfied that his enemy was no longer capable of continuing the fight, and showed no disposition to wantonly mangle an apparently dead man. Since the forty she-bears came out of the wilderness and ate up a drov

orge and his brother started to walk to that camp to make purchases. Darkness soon overtook them and while descending into Canyon Creek they heard a bear snort at some distance behind. In a few moments they heard it again, louder than before, and John rather anxiousl

an named Work, they took to their heels and did their best running to reach that haven of refuge ahead of their formidable follower. They reached the cabin, rushed in, slammed and fastened the door behind them, and with breathless inter

ere held together by cross beams, connecting the tops of the opposite posts. There was one rude window, made by cutting a hole in the side of the wall about four feet from the ground and covering this

is head and neck through the opening and gravely surveyed the terrified party. Every man sprang upon the bar and thence to the cross beam with the alacrity

usting its head through the paper of the window. Upon this occasion some of the men stood their ground, and young Work, seizing an iron-pointed Jacob's st

rds from the cabin, with the staff thrust through the heart. It proved to

f hunters from Georgetown had captured two cubs and wounded the mother, w

*

g of the second day in camp the party separated, each going his own way to hunt, and at night it was found that one of their members named Broadus failed to appear. The others started out in different d

them the previous morning what part of the country he was going to travel. Slowly following his tracks left in the soft soil and broken down herbage, they found him about

upported by a shelf of rock in front of him. His whole under jaw had been bitten off and torn away, and a large pool of clotted blood at his feet showed that he had slowly bled

est mining camp, whence others wen

und, he was suddenly attacked by a huge she-bear that was followed by two small cubs. The bear had evidently been severely wounded by Broadus and was in a terrible rage. She seized Jabine befo

to his terrible disfigurement, and was fin

brothers named Gaylord, who had just arrived from Illinois. These young men used to help out the proceeds of their claim by

t night. The following morning his two brothers set out in search and soon found him dead, bitten through the spine in the neck, evide

ars, for there were two of them, were tracked into a deep rocky canyon running from Forest Hill t

ly coming up out of Volcano Canyon. The bear was a hundred yards distant when they saw him and evinced no desire for trouble, and two of the hunters were more than willing to give him the trail and let him go about his business in peace. The other, a man named Wright, who had killed small bears, but knew nothing about t

arty all took to their heels and separated, but the bear soon overtook Wright and with one blow of his paw struck the man, face downward, upon the snow and began biting him about the head,

veral severe bites in the back and arms, but the worst wound was on the head, where the bear had struck him with his claws. His scalp was almost torn from

e mangled scalp, and bleeding soon ceased. A fire was built to keep him warm and while one watched with the wounded man the other returned to t

branes of the brain were uninjured, and the man quickly recovered, but of course had a dangerous hole in his skull that incapacitated him for wor

*

claim was in the wildest part of it. He and his partner met a Grizzly on the trail, and Brannan had no better judgment than to fire his revolv

suspense was too great a strain and involuntarily he moved the fingers of his right hand. The bear did not see the movement, and when Brannan realized that his fingers had just touched his revolver, he concei

hat the watchful Grizzly detected. Instantly the bear pinned the arm with one paw, placed the other upon Brannan's breast and with his teeth tore out the biceps muscle. Brannan had th

ually recovered, only to be murdered some yea

acer and El Dorado counties in 1850 and 1851, I am indebted to Dr. R. F. Roone