THE GRIZZLY BEAR. 51 



any account; he would rather lose his favorite wife first. 

 When he saw that I seemed indifferent to the matter, he said 

 that if I could procure him permission to hunt in the Re- 

 publican Valley he would give me one claw ; and when I 

 told him I would not have such articles, as I could get them, 

 if I wished, by simply going on a hunt myself, he looked 

 rather astonished, if an Indian can express that feeling, and 

 grunted out an " uch " of disapprobation, as if he thought 

 I was lessening his importance. 



A Nez Perce sub-chief whom I met in Idaho was also 

 exceedingly proud of a necklace of the same material which 

 he wore, arid strutted around among his compeers as if he 

 felt that none could approach him in dignity and courage. 



Hunting the grizzly has its comic side sometimes as well 

 as its tragic, though the former is too often the result or 

 sequence of the latter. I knew a man in Wyoming named 

 Grizzly Bill an individual who was equally fond of a joke 

 and a hunt, but who had a thorough contempt for cold wa- 

 ter. All the temperance lecturers in the world could not 

 induce him to look with favor on " Adam's ale," and he 

 had a standing joke which was uttered many times a day 

 when he was in a certain humor. This was, " Look here, 

 boys ! don't drink water ; you oughtn't to. You know 

 that it rots boots; and if it rots boots, what will it do to 

 a man's stomach? Let's have a drink, boys." When he 

 had become well acquainted with John Barleycorn, he was 

 always willing to tell how he received his sobriquet, and 

 he told his tale with such inimitable and unctuous humor 

 that an anchorite would laugh at it. Detailed in a few 

 words, it was, that while out " prospecting " for gold one 

 day in the Wind River Mountains, he was suddenly star- 

 tled out of his wits by the muffled roar and the charge of 

 a grizzly bear. Not knowing what to do under the cir- 

 cumstances, he did what most men would do he fired at 

 the animal, then ran for it. As the bear was closing on 

 him, he sought safety in the first tree he met, and that was 

 a young fir. Climbing up this with all the speed of terror, 

 he was comfortably seated on the strongest branch before 



