Voi. XCI 
SEPTEMBER, 1921 
No. 9 
TRAILING THE GRIZZLY IN OREGON 
IN WHICH THE TABLES ARE TURNED AND THE HUNTER BECOMES THE 
HUNTED BUT FINALLY OUTWITS THE MONARCH OF THE WILDERNESS 
S OME people may think it is all joy 
to hunt big game in a wild country 
where you are many miles from 
civilization, but if you will believe me, 
there is a good deal of work and genu- 
ine hardship mixed up with it. 
The hunt I am going to write about 
occurred many years ago in Oregon. 
I was accompanied by Riley Hammer- 
sly, who has since become a noted 
hunter himself and has been a game 
warden in Oregon for many years. This 
was Riley’s first bear hunt and before 
it was over he realized that he had been 
up against the real thing. 
We took with us on this trip seven 
good pack horses, only one, however, 
with provisions and blankets. The oth- 
ers carried empty pack saddles to use 
to pack our game back and I had 
my bear dogs, Trailor and Ranger, as 
we expected to get some bear. Our 
route lay up Big Butte Creek in Jack- 
son County, Oregon, past Rancharie 
Prairie, where we camped the first 
night, and the next day we went to 
Four Mile Lake and made camp. This 
lake is situated north of old Mt. Pitt 
and is about one-half mile wide and a 
mile and a half long and is surrounded 
by open prairie covered with high grass 
and water cold as ice. There were 
huckelberries in every direction from 
this lake, and in those days there were 
all kinds of game, such as bear, elk 
and deer, and grouse by the hundreds 
in the berry patches. 
That evening, after establishing our 
camp, we went out hunting for meat, 
as that is about the first thing to do 
when out on a hunt. We left the dogs 
in camp and went south towards Mt. 
Pitt and after traveling perhaps a mile 
and a half we ran into a big patch 
of low huckelberry bushes which were 
just loaded down with berries, and in 
a few minutes young, half grown 
grouse began to fly and light on the 
trees all around us. Our guns began 
to crack and we soon had all we wanted 
and started back to camp. After go- 
By JOHN B. GRIFFIN 
ing a short distance Riley asked me to 
take the grouse on to camp and said 
that he would make a little round and 
see if he could kill a deer for camp 
meat. Off he went in an easterly di- 
rection and I went straight towards 
camp. 
I had gone about half way when I 
came to a small burn of perhaps two 
or three acres with some green brush 
in the middle that the fire had not 
touched. It struck me that this was 
a good place for a deer to be lying 
in at this time of the day, so I ap- 
proached it cautiously with my gun 
loaded and ready. I was prepared to 
drop the grouse quickly and shoot, as 
I knew that if there were any deer in 
the brush when they discovered or 
heard me they would go out mighty 
lively, and I would have to be quick 
to get one before he got to the timber 
a short distance away. 
Sure enough, when I got there out 
went two spike or yearling bucks and 
away they went, so fast that they were 
half way to the timber before I could 
get any kind of a bead on them. As 
good luck would have it, there was a 
big log lying right in front of them, 
and as the one that was behind sprang 
over it I fired and he was gone out 
of sight. I went over and took a look 
and found blood, and after following 
the trail for forty or fifty yards I 
found the deer lying dead. I dressed 
it and putting it on my shoulder, took 
it to camp and hung it up. Then I 
cleaned the grouse, built a fire and 
started supper, expecting Riley to be 
back in a short time. But he didn’t 
come in until just about dark, and I 
had finished supper. Although he had 
not seen a thing to shoot at he had 
seen a lot of game signs and had found 
where an old bear had been feeding in 
a huckelberry patch recently. This was 
better luck than I was looking for, as 
it generally took one day to size the 
country up and find where the bear 
were using. 
T HE next morning we were up 
bright and early, and after an- 
other meal of venison, hot bread, 
butter and coffee we were off. It was 
about two miles to the berry patch 
where we saw the bear sign and we 
lit out for that the first thing. When 
we got there we found that there had 
been no bear there during the night 
and the sign that Riley had seen was 
too old now for the dogs to track. This 
was a little bit disappointing, but we 
went on, however, keeping the sarrn 
course for awhile, and then I left Ri- 
ley and turned south towards the Lake 
Contents Copyrighted, 1921, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
