26 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



or with poor weapons, id by no means small ; and were it not 

 for the faet that others sought safety in convenient trees when 

 pursued it would be much greater. A man in Northern 

 California who attacked the animal single-handed, and at 

 close quarters, was supposed to have been killed by it with a 

 single blow of its paw, for when found by his friends a few 

 days after, he was scarcely recognizable, as the flesh was torn 

 off the scalp, face, and chest; the ribs were crushed in, and 

 the arms and thighs were broken. Another man, who formed 

 one of a party of hunters who were out in search of deer 

 in California, encountered a grizzly suddenly while passing 

 through a coppice in which manzanita formed the under- 

 growth. The bear was eating the berries of this shrub, of 

 which it is very fond, and will travel far to procure, and 

 strongly protested with muffled, thundering huffs, at being 

 disturbed during its meal. The hunter being dazed by the 

 suddenness of the meeting, and terrified by the growls, knew 

 not what to do at first ; but after a short hesitation he con- 

 cluded to face about and hasten out of the shrubbery, and 

 acting on this impulse he tore through it at his highest speed. 

 The bear, which had made no threatening demonstration 

 before that time, seemed to have been aroused into fury by the 

 noise and action of the fugitive, so after him it ran. The race 

 was a short one, for the enormous weight of the grizzly carried 

 all obstacles before it, and the man was overtaken inside a 

 distance of one hundred yards, and hurled to the earth with 

 one blow. The fall stunned him for a few moments, and 

 when he recovered his senses he found that he was being 

 dragged away by the arm, the bear evidently having decided 

 to bury him for future use. Though sick at heart from 

 the pain of his arm and his forcible passage through the 

 bushes, he concluded to keep quiet, hoping that something 

 would turn up to give him an opportunity of escaping, or, if 

 the worst came to the worst, to enable him to extricate himself 

 from a living grave, lie had been dragged along onlv a 

 very short distance when the bear came to a deep canyon, and 

 as it could not carry him conveniently down this steep without 

 changing its hold, it let go the arm and seized him by the 



