302 Old Ephraim. 



its movements, and its apparently sharper senses. Still, 

 after all is said, the man should have a thoroughly trust- 

 worthy weapon and a fairly cool head, who would follow 

 into his own haunts and slay grim Old Ephraim. 



A grizzly will only fight if wounded or cornered, or, 

 at least, if he thinks himself cornered. If a man by 

 accident stumbles on to one close up, he is almost certain 

 to be attacked really more from fear than from any other 

 motive ; exactly the same reason that makes a rattle- 

 snake strike at a passer-by. I have personally known 

 of but one instance of a grizzly turning on a hunter 

 before being wounded. This happened to a friend of 

 mine, a Californian ranchman, who, with two or three 

 of his men, was following a bear that had carried off 

 one of his sheep. They got the bear into a cleft in 

 the mountain from which there was no escape, and he 

 suddenly charged back through the line of his pursuers, 

 struck down one of the horsemen, seized the arm of the 

 man in his jaws and broke it as if it had been a pipe- 

 stem, and was only killed after a most lively fight, in 

 which, by repeated charges, he at one time drove every 

 one of his assailants off the field. 



But two instances have come to my personal knowl- 

 edge where a man has been killed by a grizzly. One was 

 that of a hunter at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains 

 who had chased a large bear and finally wounded him. 

 The animal turned at once and came straight at the man, 

 whose second shot missed. The bear then closed and 

 passed on, after striking only a single blow ; yet that one 

 blow, given with all the power of its thick, immensely 



