I am even inclined to think that there have been wholly exceptional occasions when a grisly has attacked a man with the deliberate purpose of making a meal of him;when,in other words,it has started on the career of a man-eater.At least,on any other theory I find it difficult to account for an attack which once came to my knowledge.Iwas at Sand point,on Pend'Oreille Lake,and met some French and Meti trappers,then in town with their bales of beaver,otter,and sable.
One of them,who gave his name as Baptiste Lamoche,had his head twisted over to one side,the result of the bite of a bear.When the accident occurred he was out on a trapping trip with two companions.
They had pitched camp right on the shore of a cove in a little lake,and his comrades were off fishing in a dugout or pirogue.He himself was sitting near the shore,by a little lean-to,watching some beaver meat which was sizzling over the dying embers.Suddenly,and without warning,a great bear,which had crept silently up beneath the shadows of the tall evergreens,rushed at him,with a guttural roar,and seized him before he could rise to his feet.It grasped him with its jaws at the junction of the neck and shoulder,making the teeth meet through bone,sinew,and muscle;and turning,tracked off towards the forest,dragging with it the helpless and paralyzed victim.Luckily the two men in the canoe had just paddled round the point,in sight of,and close to,camp.The man in the bow,seeing the plight of their comrade,seized his rifle and fired at the bear.The bullet went through the beast's lungs,and it forthwith dropped its prey,and running off some two hundred yards,lay down on its side and died.The rescued man recovered full health and strength,but never again carried his head straight.
Old hunters and mountain-men tell many stories,not only of malicious grislies thus attacking men in camp,but also of their even dogging the footsteps of some solitary hunter and killing him when the favorable opportunity occurs.Most of these tales are mere fables;but it is possible that in altogether exceptional instances they rest on a foundation of fact.One old hunter whom I knew told me such a story.
He was a truthful old fellow and there was no doubt that he believed what he said,and that his companion was actually killed by a bear;but it is probable that he was mistaken in reading the signs of his comrade's fate,and that the latter was not dogged by the bear at all,but stumbled on him and was slain in the surprise of the moment.
At any rate,cases of wanton assaults by grislies are altogether out of the common.The ordinary hunter may live out his whole life in the wilderness and never know aught of a bear attacking a man unprovoked;and the great majority of bears are shot under circumstances of no special excitement,as they either make no fight at all,or,if they do fight,are killed before there is any risk of their doing damage.
If surprised on the plains,at some distance from timber or from badly broken ground,it is no uncommon feat for a single horseman to kill them with a revolver.Twice of late years it has been performed in the neighborhood of my ranch.In both instances the men were not hunters out after game,but simply cowboys,riding over the range in early morning in pursuance of their ordinary duties among the cattle.I knew both men and have worked with them on the round-up.Like most cowboys,they carried 44-calibre Colt revolvers,and were accustomed to and fairly expert in their use,and they were mounted on ordinary cow-ponies--quick,wiry,plucky little beasts.In one case the bear was seen from quite a distance,lounging across a broad table-land.The cowboy,by taking advantage of a winding and rather shallow coulie,got quite close to him.He then scrambled out of the coulie,put spurs to his pony,and raced up to within fifty yards of the astonished bear ere the latter quite understood what it was that was running at him through the gray dawn.He made no attempt at fight,but ran at top speed towards a clump of brush not far off at the head of a creek.
Before he could reach it,however,the galloping horsemen was alongside,and fired three shots into his broad back.He did not turn,but ran on into the bushes and then fell over and died.
In the other case the cowboy,a Texan,was mounted on a good cutting pony,a spirited,handy,agile little animal,but excitable,and with a habit of dancing,which rendered it difficult to shoot from its back.The man was with the round-up wagon,and had been sent off by himself to make a circle through some low,barren buttes,where it was not thought more than a few head of stock would be found.On rounding the corner of a small washout he almost ran over a bear which was feeding on the carcass of a steer that had died in an alkali hole.
