Htt7iting the Grisly. 307 



cation, 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 sport, and hunted for his pelt, and 

 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 tem- 

 per, 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 ani- 

 mal which has retreated into a dense thicket, and has 

 been once or twice roused ; and such a beast, when it does 

 turn, will usually charge again and again, and fight to the 



