58 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



this is not always the case, and it has much 

 respect for the hoofs or horns of its should-be 

 prey. Some horses do not seem to know how 

 to fight at all ; but others are both quick and 

 vicious, and prove themselves very formidable 

 foes, lashing out behind, and striking with 

 their fore-hoofs. I have elsewhere given an 

 instance of a stallion which beat off a bear, 

 breaking its jaw. 



Quite near my ranch, once, a cowboy in 

 my employ found unmistakable evidence of the 

 discomfiture of a bear by a long-horned range 

 cow. It was in the early spring, and the cow 

 with her new-born calf was in a brush-bor- 

 dered valley. The footprints in the damp soil 

 were very plain, and showed all that had hap- 

 pened. The bear had evidently come out of 

 the bushes with a rush, probably bent merely 

 on seizing the calf ; and had slowed up when 

 the cow instead of flying faced him. He had 

 then begun to walk round his expected dinner 

 in a circle, the cow fronting him and moving 

 nervously back and forth, so that her sharp 

 hoofs cut and trampled the ground. Finally 

 she had charged savagely ; whereupon the 

 bear had bolted ; and, whether frightened at 

 the charge, or at the approach of some one, 

 he had not returned. 



The grisly is even fonder of sheep and pigs 

 than is its smaller black brother. Lurking 

 round the settler's house until after nightfall, 

 it will vault into the fold or sty, grasp a help- 

 less, bleating fleece-bearer, or a shrieking, 

 struggling member of the bristly brotherhood, 



