Old Rpkraim, the Grisly Bear. 285 



life ; and a hungry grisly would devour either a wolf or 

 a cougar, or any one of the smaller carnivora off-hand if 

 it happened to corner it where it could not get away. 



The grisly occasionally makes its den in a cave and 

 spends therein the midday hours. But this is rare. Usually 

 it lies in the dense shelter of the most tangled piece of 

 woods in the neighborhood, choosing by preference some 

 bit where the young growth is thick and the ground strewn 

 with boulders and fallen logs. Often, especially if in a 

 restless mood and roaming much over the country, it 

 merely makes a temporary bed, in which it lies but once 

 or twice ; and again it may make a more permanent lair or 

 series of lairs, spending many consecutive nights in each. 

 Usually the lair or bed is made some distance from the 

 feeding ground ; but bold bears, in very wild localities, 

 may lie close by a carcass, or in the middle of a berry 

 ground. The deer-killing bear above mentioned had 

 evidently dragged two or three of his victims to his den, 

 which was under an impenetrable mat of bull-berries and 

 dwarf box-alders, hemmed in by a cut bank on one side 

 and a wall of gnarled cottonwoods on the other. Round 

 this den, and rendering it noisome, were scattered the 

 bones of several deer and a young steer or heifer. When 

 we found it we thought we could easily kill the bear, but 

 the fierce, cunning beast must have seen or smelt us, for 

 though we laid in wait for it long and patiently, it did not 

 come back to its place ; nor, on our subsequent visits, did 

 we ever find traces of its having done so. 



Bear are fond of wallowing in the water, whether in the 

 sand, on the edge of a rapid plains river, on the muddy 



