His Fierceness 245 



was killed by a Rocky Mountain grizzly, but no one of 

 these cases would I call an unprovoked attack. 



The man who was killed was out prospecting and car- 

 ried no weapons whatever. He had a miner's gold pan 

 in his hand, and he and his companion were saunter- 

 ing along through some down timber. In stepping over 

 a windfall of logs he almost stumbled on an old she 

 grizzly with cubs who was lying beneath the jam, and as 

 he turned to run the old bear rose, dealt him a blow 

 with her powerful paw that smashed his skull, and im- 

 mediately hustled her cubs out of the logs and made off 

 at a fast pace, paying no attention whatever to the other 

 miner, who was standing a few feet away, bewildered at 

 the misfortune of his companion. I would certainly not 

 regard this as an unprovoked attack, and should expect 

 the same thing to happen to me should I, by accident, 

 commit the same indiscretion. Fortunately the grizzly 

 is so alert that it is not once in a man's lifetime that he 

 would be able to approach thus near to one without the 

 latter's knowing it. And, whether they have young or 

 not, if they are aware of any one's approach, they will 

 scurry away long before the intruder has any chance of 

 seeing them. 



In the other case, the injured men were hunters who 

 had followed bears into the thicket after wounding them, 

 and almost any wounded animal will attack one who is 

 foolish enough to trail it into thick brush and down 

 timber. The worst thumping I ever got (it was among 

 my earliest experiences) was from a mule deer that I 

 approached when lying wounded in the brush. I was 

 hurled through the air for twenty feet or more, and then 



