OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 55 



lifeless, while the snow yet lies in deep drifts, 

 the lean, hungry brute, both maddened and 

 weakened by long fasting, is more of a flesh 

 eater than at any other time. It is at this 

 period that it is most apt to turn true beast 

 of prey, and show its prowess either at the 

 expense of the wild game, or of the flocks of 

 the settler and the herds of the ranchman. 

 Bears are very capricious in this respect, how- 

 ever. Some are confirmed game, and cattle- 

 killers ; others are not ; while yet others either 

 are or are not accordingly as the freak seizes 

 them, and their ravages vary almost unac- 

 countably, both with the season and the 

 locality. 



Throughout 1889, for instance, no cattle, so 

 far as I heard, were killed by bears anywhere 

 near my range on the Little Missouri in west- 

 ern Dakota ; yet I happened to know that 

 during that same season the ravages of the 

 bears among the herds of the cowmen in the 

 Big Hole Basin, in western Montana, were 

 very destructive. 



In the spring and early summer of 1888, 

 the bea*rs killed no cattle near my ranch ; but 

 in the late summer and early fall of that year 

 a big bear, which we well knew by its tracks, 

 suddenly took to cattle-killing. This was a 

 brute which had its headquarters on some 

 very large brush bottoms a dozen miles below 

 my ranch house, and which ranged to and fro 

 across the broken country flanking the river 

 on each side. It began just before berry 

 time, but continued its career of destruction 



