CHAPTER X 



OLD EPHRAIM 



BUT few bears are found in the immediate neigh 

 borhood of my ranch ; and though I have once 

 or twice seen their tracks in the Bad Lands, I have 

 never had any experience with the animals them 

 selves except during the elk-hunting trip on the 

 Bighorn Mountains, described in the preceding 

 chapter. 



The grisly bear undoubtedly comes in the cate 

 gory of dangerous game, and is, perhaps, the only 

 animal in the United States that can be fairly so 

 placed, unless we count the few jaguars found north 

 of the Rio Grande. But the danger of hunting the 

 grisly has been greatly exaggerated, and the sport 

 is certainly very much safer than it was at the be 

 ginning of this century. The first hunters who came 

 into contact with this great bear were men belong 

 ing to that hardy and adventurous class of back 

 woodsmen which had filled the wild country between 

 the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi. 

 These men carried but one weapon: the long-bar 

 reled, small-bored pea-rifle, whose bullets ran sev 

 enty to the pound, the amount of powder and lead 

 being a little less than that contained in the cartridge 

 of a thirty-two calibre Winchester. In the Eastern 



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