Hunting the Grisly. 325 



Yet the very next spring the cowboys with my own 

 wagon on the Little Missouri round-up killed a mother 

 bear which made but little more fight than a coyote. She 

 had two cubs, and was surprised in the early morning on 

 the prairie far from cover. There were eight or ten cow- 

 boys together at the time, just starting off on a long circle, 

 and of course they all got down their ropes in a second, 

 and putting spurs to their fiery little horses started toward 

 the bears at a run, shouting and swinging their loops 

 round their heads. For a moment the old she tried to 

 bluster and made a half-hearted threat of charging ; but 

 her courage failed before the rapid onslaught of her yell- 

 ing, rope-swinging assailants ; and she took to her heels 

 and galloped off, leaving the cubs to shift for themselves. 

 The cowboys were close behind, however, and after half 

 a mile's run she bolted into a shallow cave or hole in the 

 side of a butte, where she stayed cowering and growling, 

 until one of the men leaped off his horse, ran up to the 

 edge of the hole, and killed her with a single bullet from 

 his revolver, fired so close that the powder burned her 

 hair. The unfortunate cubs were roped, and then so 

 dragged about that they were speedily killed instead of 

 being brought alive to camp, as ought to have been 

 done. 



In the cases mentioned above the grisly attacked only 

 after having been itself assailed, or because it feared an 

 assault, for itself or for its young. In the old days, how- 

 ever, it may almost be said that a grisly was more apt to 

 attack than to flee. Lewis and Clarke and the early 

 explorers who immediately succeeded them, as well as the 



