Hunting the Grisly 129 



which had rolled a hundred yards below him, 

 but not otherwise the worse for his misad- 

 venture; while the footprints showed that the 

 bear, after delivering the single hurried stroke 

 at the unwitting disturber of its day-dreams, 

 had run off uphill as fast as it was able. 



A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dan- 

 gerous beast; yet even under such conditions 

 different grislies act in directly opposite ways. 

 Some she-grislies, when their cubs are young, 

 but are able to follow them about, seem al- 

 ways worked up to the highest pitch of anx- 

 ious and jealous rage, so that they are likely 

 to attack unprovoked any intruder or even 

 passer-by. Others when threatened by the 

 hunter leave their cubs to their fate without 

 a visible qualm of any kind, and seem to 

 think only of their own safety. 



In 1882 Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, now of 

 New York, met with a very singular adven- 

 ture with a she-bear and cub. He was in 

 Harvard when I was, but left it and, like a 

 good many other Harvard men of that time, 

 took to cow-punching in the West. He went 

 on a ranch in Rio Arriba County, New Mexi- 

 co, and was a keen hunter, especially fond of 

 the chase of cougar, bear, and elk. One day 

 while riding a stony mountain trail he saw 



