This is the only instance in which I have been regularly charged by a grisly.On the whole,the danger of hunting these great bears has been much exaggerated.At the beginning of the present century,when white hunters first encountered the grisly,he was doubtless an exceedingly savage beast,prone to attack without provocation,and a redoubtable foe to persons armed with the clumsy,small-bore muzzle-loading rifles of the day.But at present bitter experience has taught him caution.
He has been hunted for the bounty,and hunted as a dangerous enemy to stock,until,save in the very wildest districts,he has learned to be more wary than a deer and to avoid man's presence almost as carefully as the most timid kind of game.Except in rare cases he will not attack of his own accord,and,as a rule,even when wounded his object is escape rather than battle.
Still,when fairly brought to bay,or when moved by a sudden fit of ungovernable anger,the grisly is beyond peradventure a very dangerous antagonist.The first shot,if taken at a bear a good distance off and previously unwounded and unharried,is not usually fraught with much danger,the startled animal being at the outset bent merely on flight.
It is always hazardous,however,to track a wounded and worried grisly into thick cover,and the man who habitually follows and kills this chief of American game in dense timber,never abandoning the bloody trail whithersoever it leads,must show no small degree of skill and hardihood,and must not too closely count the risk to life or limb.
Bears differ widely in temper,and occasionally one may be found who will not show fight,no matter how much he is bullied;but,as a rule,a hunter must be cautious in meddling with a wounded animal which has retreated into a dense thicket,and had been once or twice roused;and such a beast,when it does turn,will usually charge again and again,and fight to the last with unconquerable ferocity.The short distance at which the bear can be seen through the underbrush,the fury of his charge,and his tenacity of life make it necessary for the hunter on such occasions to have steady nerves and a fairly quick and accurate aim.It is always well to have two men in following a wounded bear under such conditions.This is not necessary,however,and a good hunter,rather than lose his quarry,will,under ordinary circumstances,follow and attack it,no matter how tangled the fastness in which it has sought refuge;but he must act warily and with the utmost caution and resolution,if he wishes to escape a terrible and probably fatal mauling.An experienced hunter is rarely rash,and never heedless;he will not,when alone,follow a wounded bear into a thicket,if by that exercise of patience,skill,and knowledge of the game's habits he can avoid the necessity;but it is idle to talk of the feat as something which ought in no case to be attempted.While danger ought never to be needlessly incurred,it is yet true that the keenest zest in sport comes from its presence,and from the consequent exercise of the qualities necessary to overcome it.The most thrilling moments of an American hunter's life are those in which,with every sense on the alert,and with nerves strung to the highest point,he is following alone into the heart of its forest fastness the fresh and bloody footprints of an angered grisly;and no other triumph of American hunting can compare with the victory to be thus gained.
These big bears will not ordinarily charge from a distance of over a hundred yards;but there are exceptions to this rule.In the fall of 1890my friend Archibald Rogers was hunting in Wyoming,south of the Yellowstone Park,and killed seven bears.One,an old he,was out on a bare table-land,grubbing for roots,when he was spied.It was early in the afternoon,and the hunters,who were on a high mountain slope,examined him for some time through their powerful glasses before making him out to be a bear.They then stalked up to the edge of the wood which fringed on the table-land on one side,but could get no nearer than about three hundred yards,the plains being barren of all cover.After waiting for a couple of hours Rogers risked the shot,in despair of getting nearer,and wounded the bear,though not very seriously.The animal made off,almost broadside to,and Rogers ran forward to intercept it.As soon as it saw him it turned and rushed straight for him,not heeding his second shot,and evidently bent on charging home.Rogers then waited until it was within twenty yards,and brained it with his third bullet.
In fact bears differ individually in courage and ferocity precisely as men do,or as the Spanish bulls,of which it is said that not more than one in twenty is fit to stand the combat of the arena.One grisly can scarcely be bullied into resistance;the next may fight to the end,against any odds,without flinching,or even attack unprovoked.
Hence men of limited experience in this sport,generalizing from the actions of the two or three bears each has happened to see or kill,often reach diametrically opposite conclusions as to the fighting temper and capacity of the quarry.Even old hunters--who indeed,as a class,are very narrow-minded and opinionated--often generalize just as rashly as beginners.One will portray all bears as very dangerous;another will speak and act as if he deemed them of no more consequence than so many rabbits.I knew one old hunter who had killed a score without ever seeing one show fight.On the other hand,Dr.James C.
