MR. DOOLEY: "HER" STORY 



By DAN BEARD 



• 



A few years ago, Mr. Walker, of the gentle, better-hearted Dear than Mr. 

 Yellowstone Park, while on horseback, Dooley, the great grizzly of Yellow- 

 ran down a silver-tip cub, and when I stone Park. Far better would it have been 

 sketched it the cub was fastened to a for the lady bear with a gentleman's 

 tree. name if she had adhered closely to the 



The cub was named Mr. Dooley, but traditions of her race and developed 



there was some mistake in this, as the into a surly, gruff, dangerous old girl, 



young monster was not a mister, in place of the gentle, sweet-tempered 



though, as it appears "he" was a she. creature she really made of herself. 



I placed my sketching stool just out True, she would not have been petted 



of reach of the cub, and, while I worked and fed with prunes and sweetmeats, 



with my pencil, Mr. Dooley spent "his" but she would have been much happier 



time scraping the dirt with his paws, than she now is, poor thing! 



making long canals in the loose earth The trouble with Mr. Dooley is that 



as "he" backed away, but all the time "he" made the mistake of applying the 



keeping "his" wicked little pig eyes Golden Rule to human beings, and the 



fastened on me. human beings did not appreciate the 



Every once in a while "he" would generous nature of the bear. 



make a sudden savage rush at me and Human beings are all right when they 



end it with a half-strangled gurgling preach and when they write, but their 



growl. brothers in fur will do well to not to 



When the season was over, the com- trust to the sincerity of the two-legged 

 mander of the post stated that he in- creatures' sentiments, 

 tended to send Mr. Dooley to the Because the gentle grizzly of Yellow- 

 Washington Zoo. This grieved Mr. stone Park was guileless and unsuspici- 

 Walker, until the late Major Bach in- ous, she (Mr. Dooley) was led into 

 nocently asked if Dooley never escaped, captivity, and is now imprisoned in a 

 and the next morning it was discovered narrow iron-barred cell in the Wash- 

 that Dooley had escaped. ington Zoo. 



Next spring, when Mrs. Walker ar- And when the readers of Recreation 



rived with her husband at the canon, to visit Washington, and see a big grizzly 



open the hotel, Dooley was waiting to with its tongue lolling out of its mouth, 



greet them on the broad veranda. and a far-away look in its eyes, they 



Time rolled on, and Dooley became may know that it is the lady bear, 

 a favorite visitor at the camps, and it known as Mr. Dooley, of Yellowstone 

 was indeed a novel sight to see a great, Park, and that the poor girl is dream- 

 hulking, silver-tip bear wrestling with ing of her free life in the mountains, 

 the guides and enjoying the fun as or her real friends, the guides and cooks 

 much as the astonished spectators. of the camps, and Mr. and Mrs. Walker 



Dooley, although a very, very bad lit- of the Canon Hotel, 



tie cub,broadenedboth in mind and body It is hoped that the visitors will take 



as "he" grew older, and adopted the with them some little green thing — 



Golden Rule as "his" moral code ; but turnips, apples, or any vegetable which 



this was a sad mistake on the bear's will gladden the heart of the lady bear 



part. There perhaps never was a more who trusted man to her sorrow. 



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