52 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



digging up gophers, or perhaps following the 

 great buffalo herds either to prey on some un- 

 wary straggler which he was able to catch at 

 a disadvantage in a washout, or else to feast 

 on the carcasses of those which died by acci- 

 dent. Old hunters, survivors of the long- 

 vanished ages when the vast herds thronged 

 the high plains and were followed by the wild 

 red tribes, and by bands of whites who were 

 scarcely less savage, have told me that they, 

 often met bears under such circumstances ; 

 and these bears were accustomed to sleep in 

 a patch of rank sage bush, in the niche of a 

 washout, or under the lee of a boulder, seek- 

 ing their food abroad even in full daylight. 

 The bears of the Upper Missouri basin 

 which were so light in color that the early ex- 

 plorers often alluded to them as gray or even 

 as " white " were particularly given to this 

 life in the open. To this day that close kins- 

 man of the grisly known as the bear of the 

 barren grounds continues to lead this same 

 kind of life, in the far north. My friend Mr. 

 Rockhill, of Maryland, who was the first white 

 man to explore eastern Tibet, describes the 

 large, grisly-like bear of those desolate up- 

 lands as having similar habits. 



However, the grisly is a shrewd beast and 

 shows the usual bear-like capacity for adapting 

 himself to changed conditions. He has in 

 most places become a cover-haunting animal, 

 sly in his ways, wary to a degree, and cling- 

 ing to the shelter of the deepest forests in the 

 mountains and of the most tangled thickets 



