310 The Wilderness Hunter. 



very narrow-minded and opinionated often generalize 

 just as rashly as beginners. One will portray all bears 

 as very dangerous ; another will speak and act as if he 

 deemed them of no more consequence than so many 

 rabbits. I knew one old hunter who had killed a score 

 without ever seeing one show fight. On the other hand, 

 Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A., who has had about as 

 much experience with bears as I have had, informs me 

 that he has been charged with the utmost determination 

 three times. In each case the attack was delivered before 

 the bear was wounded or even shot at, the animal being 

 roused by the approach of the hunters from his day bed, 

 and charging headlong at them from a distance of twenty 

 or thirty paces. All three bears were killed before they 

 could do any damage. There was a very remarkable 

 incident connected with the killing of one of them. It 

 occurred in the northern spurs of the Bighorn range. Dr. 

 Merrill, in company with an old hunter, had climbed 

 down into a deep, narrow canyon. The bottom was 

 threaded with well-beaten elk trails. While following 

 one of these the two men turned a corner of the canyon 

 and were instantly charged by an old she-grisly, so close 

 that it was only by good luck that one of the hurried 

 shots disabled her and caused her to tumble over a cut 

 bank where she was easily finished. They found that 

 she had been lying directly across the game trail, on a 

 smooth well beaten patch of bare earth, which looked as 

 if it had been dug up, refilled, and trampled down. Look- 

 ing curiously at this patch they saw a bit of hide only 

 partially covered at one end ; digging down they found 

 the body of a well grown grisly cub. Its skull had been 



