His Fierceness ^ 241 



hand above his head, the encounter would have ended 

 then and there. 



The description given by Drummond, the botanist, 

 of his experiences with grizzHes in the Rockies in 1826 

 coincides exactly with my own observations of these ani- 

 mals fifty years later. He noted their curiosity — often 

 came upon them standing up to look at him — but found 

 that if he made a noise with his specimen-box "or even 

 waved his hand" they ran away. 



One glimpse, too, we get of the actual descendants 

 of the Missouri River bottom grizzlies of Lewis and Clark; 

 and this, as far as it goes, tends to suggest that fifty years 

 had left them much as they were when first encountered. 

 The story is told over the signature "Montana," in the 

 issue of Forest and Stream^ of December 12, 1903. It 

 seems that on May 21, i860, a party from the Ameri- 

 can Fur Company's post at Fort Benton camped on the 

 site of the Lewis and Clark camp of May 14, 1805. This 

 party included Malcolm Clark, trader, a big giant of a 

 fellow; John Newbert, tailor, and one Carson, cordelier; 

 and Clark, having followed a grizzly into the woods, came 

 upon him standing up to look back at him, and shot him 

 high up through the lungs. Clark was armed with a 

 Hawkins muzzle-loading rifle, shooting a ball thirty to 

 the pound. The wounded bear charged instantly, knocked 

 the clubbed rifle from Clark's hands, and, felling him with 

 a blow of his armored paw, rushed on. Clark, whose 

 skull was fractured, fell in his tracks; but his compan- 

 ions, waiting at the edge of the timber, killed the bear 

 as it came out, and then, bearing Clark to the canoe, car- 

 ried him two hundred and fifty miles down the river to 



