38 



f Oh, Ranger!' 



of a ranger at Old Faithful, in response to the question of a Dude as to 

 why the ranger carried a high-powered rifle. 



"Is that to shoot the bears if they bother the people?" he asked. 

 "Naw, it's to shoot the people if they bother the bears," wise-cracked 

 the ranger. "Every now an' then I have to shoot a few people." 

 You should have seen that Dude's jaw drop. 



The facts are, we have a rifle there as a safety-first proposition. 

 Sometimes as many as two dozen bears will gather at the "combination 

 salad" plate at one time. The rule in Beardom is that the biggest bears 

 can eat all they want first, then the next sized bears come along, and so 

 on, until if there is anything left the little fellows can have some. Some 

 times there is a difference of opinion among the big fellows as to who 

 is biggest and first, and if they got to fighting it might be dangerous to 

 visitors to the park, particularly when several hundred of them are 

 crowded around the inclosure. When a bear takes a notion to make a 

 get-away, he goes. He doesn't look to see if people are in the way. 



Ranger Arthur Chapman, Jr., son of the author of "Out Where the 

 West Begins," tells of an amusing adventure at the Old Faithful "salad 

 bowl" one time when one of these little bears grew tired of waiting for 

 the old ones to finish eating. He was hungry and the salad was disap 

 pearing at an alarming rate into the mouths of three huge bears wal 

 lowing improvidently in the middle of the bowl. The little bear, con 

 trary to his usual policy of waiting patiently on the woods side of the 

 pit, came around to the side the people were on, where there were a lot 

 of cans and pans between the spectators and the pit. He walked slowly 

 to a pile of tin cans about fifty feet from the bears, fanned his anger 



into a frenzy, slammed cans noisily in 

 every direction, growled loud enough to 

 be mistaken for half a dozen bears, and 

 charged across more cans at the "salad 

 bowl." 



The suddenness and the noise of his 

 attack frightened the big bears, who ran 

 off to the woods, perhaps fearing the ar 

 rival of a grizzly. They left the "salad" to 

 the victorious little bear, who ate greedily. 

 On the following evening, he attempted 

 to duplicate his bluff. This time the big 

 bears were wise. Instead of running, they charged at the little bear. It 

 was his turn to beat a fast retreat. He ran straight for the crowd of 

 people watching the bears from the railing around the pit. It looked as 

 if the time had come for the ranger to use the rifle, what with those 

 angry big bears tearing after that little fellow and all headed for a crowd 



