A RAINY DAY IN CAMP 207 



MACK NORBOE'S BIGGEST BEAR 



"Yes, I've hunted grizzly b'ar and black b'ar in 

 Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and British Columbia. 

 All told, I think I must have shot up and trapped purty 

 nigh on to a hundred; but out of all the grizzlies I've 

 shot, and shot at, only one ever really charged me. But 

 I don't believe even that one would a-charged me if it 

 hadn't been for my dogs. 



" That was in Routt County, Colorado, between the 

 White and the B'ar Rivers, in the spring of '91. I think 

 there's a family of big b'ar in that country, just as there's 

 an outfit of specially big black b'ar here on Elk River. 

 In this Colorado country that I'm a-tellin' ye about, there 

 was a whalin' big grizzly that they called ( old Jumbo,' 

 and he'd been killin' cattle for five or six years. From 

 the size of his tracks, everybody knew that he was a 

 shore big 'un, but I don't know of any one who had 

 seen or shot at him. Sam Ware, who had a cattle-ranch 

 on B'ar River, tracked him one day down Crooked-Wash 

 Creek, and had Sam run onto him he shore would have 

 rounded old Jumbo up, for he was a good shot, and full 

 o' sand. 



" Early in the spring I was out with my two fox- 

 hounds, runnin' a mountain-lion, but the track was so 

 old we didn't jump him. There was considerable snow 

 on the ground, and in making a circuit we struck on 

 old Jumbo's tracks. Gee! but they were big! He had 

 just come out of his winter quarters in the White River 

 range, and was pintin' out toward B'ar River. The 



