CHAPTER XIV. 



OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 



THE king of the game beasts of temperate North 

 America, because the most dangerous to the hun- 

 ter, is the grisly bear ; known to the few remain- 

 ing old-time trappers of the Rockies and the Great Plains, 

 sometimes as " Old Ephraim " and sometimes as " Mocca- 

 sin Joe " the last in allusion to his queer, half-human 

 footprints, which look as if made by some misshapen 

 giant, walking in moccasins. 



Bear vary greatly in size and color, no less than in tem- 

 per and habits. Old hunters speak much of them in their 

 endless talks over the camp fires and in the snow-bound 

 winter huts. They insist on many species ; not merely 

 the black and the grisly, but the brown, the cinnamon, the 

 gray, the silver-tip, and others with names known only in 

 certain localities, such as the range bear, the roach-back, 

 and the smut-face. But, in spite of popular opinion to 

 the contrary, most old hunters are very untrustworthy in 

 dealing with points of natural history. They usually know 

 only so much about any given game animal as will enable 

 them to kill it. They study its habits solely with this end 



