120 Hunting the Grisly 



straight; while others first threaten and bully, 

 and even when charging stop to growl, shake 

 the head, and bite at a bush or knock holes 

 in the ground with their fore-paws. Again, 

 some of them charge home with a ferocious 

 resolution which their extreme tenacity of life 

 renders especially dangerous ; while others can 

 be turned or driven back even by a shot which 

 is not mortal. They show the same variabil 

 ity in their behavior when wounded. Often 

 a big bear, especially if charging, will receive 

 a bullet in perfect silence, without flinching 

 or seeming to pay any heed to it; while an 

 other will cry out and tumble about, and if 

 charging, even though it may not abandon the 

 attack, will pause for a moment to whine or 

 bite at the wound. 



Sometimes a single bite causes death. One 

 of the most successful bear hunters I ever 

 knew, an old fellow whose real name I never 

 heard as he was always called Old Ike, was 

 killed in this way in the spring or early sum 

 mer of 1886 on one of the head-waters of the 

 Salmon. He was a very good shot, had killed 

 nearly a hundred bears with the rifle, and, al 

 though often charged, had never met with 

 any accident, so that he had grown somewhat 

 careless. On the day in question he had met a 



