HUNTING IN AFRICA 119 
He seemed to them, as, indeed, he was, immensely strong, 
and tenacious of life. The early trappers for the same 
reason dreaded him, and trappers’ yarns largely helped to 
retain for him his reputation. I saw myself a great skin 
which two trappers tried to sell me in 1868. They told a 
blood-curdling story of his slaying. He had hurt neither 
of them, but the skin certainly had thirteen Henry rifle 
bullets through it. The rifle with which they were armed 
was an admirable gun for standing off Indians, but a poor 
weapon to kill a grizzly with. But with the advent of the 
powerful modern rifle things changed. It was found 
by those who tried to tell the truth (and I am not in any 
unkindly way maligning the memory of those interesting 
old fellows who lived hermits’ lives amid the mountains, 
when I say they very seldom did try to do this) that a 
grizzly fell to a well-placed shot just as quickly as any other 
heavy animal. Moreover, it came to be known that that 
bear has an almost invariable custom of falling right down 
to any shot that hits him anywhere, even though it inflict 
but a small wound. ‘This accounts, by the way, for stories 
so common of this unusual tenacity of life. Then at length 
men who had hunted him regularly for years and killed 
him in his chosen haunt of rocky canyon and steepest 
darkest mountain woodland, began to confess to each 
other the simple truth; and it was this: that no animal 
capable of killing a man, took more pains to run away or 
ran faster or farther than Ursus Horribilis. 
I can speak with some first-hand knowledge, because for 
ten consecutive years but one I hunted him perseveringly. 
I never was charged by a grizzly except once, and that was 
when creeping up to his kill, which he had buried under 
a great heap of stones, earth and stumps, and behind which 
he lay half asleep, after a heavy meal. He mistook my 
footfall for that of some cousin of his, coming without an 
invitation to sup off his elk, and in incontinent hurry 
