Hunting the Grisly 135 



sition had been soured by combats with others 

 of its own kind. In yet another case, a grisly 

 charged with even less excuse. An old trap 

 per, from whom I occasionally bought fur, 

 was toiling up a mountain pass when he spied 

 a big bear sitting on his haunches on the hill 

 side above. The trapper shouted and waved 

 his cap; whereupon, to his amazement, the 

 bear uttered a loud &quot;wough&quot; and charged 

 straight down on him only to fall a victim 

 to misplaced boldness. 



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. I was at Sand 

 Point, on Fend d 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 La- 

 moche, 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 



