Followers of Lewis and Clark 35 



of specimens, they would rear up, look at him, and make 

 off. He makes no comment upon this, however, and 

 draws no inferences from it, and evidently never thought 

 to try the experiment himself. One wishes, by the way, 

 that Drummond had been a student of animals instead of 

 plants. He had the right kind of stuff in him. He evi- 

 dently came from Missouri, and he had great opportu- 

 nities. For instance, in the latter part of June, 1826, he 

 saw a male grizzly caressing a female. Soon after, both 

 came toward him, whether by accident or to attack he 

 did not wait to see, but climbed a tree. He then (being 

 after all only a botanist) shot the female, and the enraged 

 male rushed up to his tree and reared against it, but did 

 not try to climb. He then returned to the female, which 

 had sunk to the ground, and Drummond shot him too. 

 So was wasted a chance to watch a forest courtship, to 

 observe which I would tramp a hundred miles and live in 

 a tree for a week. 



So much then for the early history of the grizzly. It is 

 not much, but it is all we have. Lewis and Clark's obser- 

 vations are the basis of it, repeated with slight variations 

 and considerable embellishments in regard to ferociousness 

 and bloodthirstiness by each after writer. Occasionally 

 one of these adds an original observation or a hearsay 

 anecdote. Then these in turn are repeated and embel- 

 lished. 



Meanwhile, the grizzly had been seized upon as a lit- 

 erary godsend in another quarter. To the romancers, the 

 discovery of an Ursus horribilis was like the throwing 

 open to settlement of a new territory, and there was a 

 regular stampede to locate quarter sections. Captain 



