380 Wild Beasts 



gun from Pierre, and gave him the coup de grdce behind 

 the ear, when, with a peculiarly melancholy, whining moan, 

 he stretched out his great limbs and breathed his last." 



The boy, though wounded, was feigning death and 

 escaped, but it must be admitted that the ruse was tried 

 under exceptionally favorable circumstances. "Many and 

 many a spirit-stirring yarn," says Leveson, " have I heard 

 related by hunters, around the watch-fire, of their encounters 

 with the much-dreaded grizzly." Bear stories are greatly 

 alike, he adds, and concludes his description by saying, in 

 much the same way as Colonel Dodge (" The Black Hills "), 

 " from my own experience, I should always give ' Old 

 Ephraim' a wide berth if I were not armed with a 

 thoroughly serviceable breech-loading rifle throwing a 

 large ball." 



The annals of hunting preserve the name of no greater 

 or more adventurous sportsman than he who gives this 

 opinion. It is one which every one who has encountered 

 the grizzly bear will agree to, and it might also have been 

 arrived at from studying the literature of this subject 

 alone. 



