70 Hunting the Grisly 



the tracks said he would never have deemed 

 it possible for any animal to make such strides 

 while in a trot. 



Nevertheless, the grisly is only occasionally, 

 not normally, a formidable predatory beast, a 

 killer of cattle and of large game. Although 

 capable of far swifter movement than is prom- 

 ised by his frame of seemingly clumsy strength, 

 and in spite of his power of charging with as- 

 tonishing suddenness and speed, he yet lacks 

 altogether the supple agility of such finished 

 destroyers as the cougar and the wolf; and for 

 the absence of this quality no amount of mere 

 huge muscle can atone. He is more apt to 

 feast on animals which have met their death 

 by accident, or which have been killed by 

 other beasts or by man, than to do his own 

 killing. He is a very foul feeder, with a 

 strong relish for carrion, and possesses a grew- 

 some and cannibal fondness for the flesh of 

 his own kind ; a bear carcass will toll a brother 

 bear to the ambushed hunter better than al- 

 most any other bait, unless it is the carcass of 

 a horse. 



Nor do these big bears always content them- 

 selves merely with the carcasses of their breth- 

 ren. A black bear would have a poor chance 

 if in the clutches of a large, hungry grisly; 



