364 Wild Beasts 



discipline to those savages among whom their lives have 

 been passed. Like them, their observations are generally 

 accurate, and the inferences drawn from experience absurd. 

 Travellers who associate with undeveloped men anywhere 

 soon learn to make this distinction. Moreover, the trapper 

 or hunter seen in general and most frequently met with in 

 books, no more resembles some exceptional members of this 

 class, than that blustering, melodramatic assassin, the would- 

 be desperado, does the quiet, self-contained fighting-man of 

 the frontier, and a wider difference than these classes 

 present cannot be found among alien species in nature. 

 If one is fortunate enough to find favor in the eyes of 

 a true mountain man, he will do well to listen to what 

 is said, and compare as many experiences with him as 

 possible. 



Among reports most rife upon the border is this, that if 

 a fugitive pursued by a grizzly bear keeps a straight line 

 around a hillside, the animal is certain to get either above 

 or below him. The writer has heard men swear that they 

 have tried this and seen it tried, but would be loath to 

 trust in this device himself. Many persons are also con- 

 vinced of the truth of a very prevalent account to the 

 effect that a puma can kill one of these bears, and fre- 

 quently does so. Nothing can be offered on the basis of 

 personal experience or observation either in corroboration 

 or rebuttal of this opinion. We have seen that there are 

 good grounds for crediting the fact of Indian wild dogs 

 assaulting tigers successfully, and the same is not impos- 

 sible in this instance. Theodore Roosevelt (" Hunting 

 Trips of a Ranchman'*) says "anyone of the big bears 



