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 



