100 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



came in contact with many persons who had 

 been severely mauled or even crippled for life 

 by grislies; and a number of cases where 

 they killed men outright were also brought 

 under my ken. Generally these accidents, as 

 was natural, occurred to hunters who had 

 roused or wounded the game. 



A fighting bear sometimes uses his claws 

 and sometimes his teeth. I have never known 

 one to attempt to kill an antagonist by hug- 

 ging, in spite of the popular belief to this 

 effect; though he will sometimes draw an 

 enemy towards him with his paws the better 

 to reach him with his teeth, and to hold him 

 so that he cannot escape from the biting. 

 Nor does the bear often advance on his hind 

 legs to the attack ; though, if the man has 

 come close to him in thick underbrush, or has 

 stumbled on him in his lair unawares, he will 

 often rise up in this fashion and strike a single 

 blow. He will also rise in clinching with a 

 man on horseback. In 1882 a mounted In- 

 dian was killed in this manner on one of the 

 river bottoms some miles below where my 

 ranch house now stands, not far from the junc- 

 tion of the Beaver and Little Missouri. The 

 bear had been hunted into a thicket by a band 

 of Indians, in whose company my informant, 

 a white squaw-man, with whom I afterward 

 did some trading, was travelling. One of 

 them in the excitement of the pursuit rode 

 across the end of the thicket ; as he did so the 

 great beast sprang at him with wonderful 

 quickness, rising on its hind legs, and knock- 



