Hunting the Grisly. 323 



even a fright. His name was Perkins, and he was out 

 gathering huckleberries in the woods on a mountain side 

 near Pend'Oreille Lake. Suddenly he was sent flying 

 head over heels, by a blow which completely knocked the 

 breath out of his body ; and so instantaneous was the 

 whole affair that all he could ever recollect about it was 

 getting a vague glimpse of the bear just as he was bowled 

 over. When he came to he found himself lying some 

 distance down the hill-side, much shaken, and without his 

 berry pail, which had rolled a hundred yards below him, 

 but not otherwise the worse for his misadventure ; while 

 the footprints showed that the bear, after delivering the 

 single hurried stroke at the unwitting disturber of its day- 

 dreams, had run off up-hill as fast as it was able. 



A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dangerous 

 beast ; yet even under such conditions different grislies 

 act in directly opposite ways. Some she-grislies, when 

 their cubs are young, but are able to follow them about, 

 seem always worked up to the highest pitch of anxious 

 and jealous rage, so that they are likely to attack unpro- 

 voked any intruder or even passer-by. Others when 

 threatened by the hunter leave their cubs to their fate 

 without a visible qualm of any kind, and seem to think 

 only of their own safety. 



In 1882 Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, now of New York, 

 met with a very singular adventure with a she-bear and 

 cub. He was in Harvard when I was, but left it and, like 

 a good many other Harvard men of that time, took to 

 cow-punching in the West. He went on a ranch in Rio 

 Arriba County, New Mexico, and was a keen hunter, 



