Hunting the Grisly 135 



sition had been soured by combats with others 

 of its own kind. In yet another case, a grisly 

 charged with even less excuse. An old trap- 

 per, from whom I occasionally bought fur, 

 was toiling up a mountain pass when he spied 

 a big bear sitting on his haunches on the hill- 

 side above. The trapper shouted and waved 

 his cap; whereupon, to his amazement, the 

 bear uttered a loud "wough" and charged 

 straight down on him only to fall a victim 

 to misplaced boldness. 



I am even inclined to think that there have 

 been wholly exceptional occasions when a 

 grisly has attacked a man with the deliberate 

 purpose of making a meal of him; when, in 

 other words, it has started on the career of a 

 man-eater. At least, on any other theory I 

 find it difficult to account for an attack which 

 once came to my knowledge. I was at Sand 

 Point, on Pend d'Oreille Lake, and met some 

 French and Meti trappers, then in town with 

 their bales of beaver, otter, and sable. One 

 of them, who gave his name as Baptiste La- 

 moche, had his head twisted over to one side, 

 the result of the bite of a bear. When the 

 accident occurred he was out on a trapping 

 trip with two companions. They had pitched 

 camp right on the shore of a cove in a little 



