42 AMONG THE COWBOYS AND IN THE HUNTING FIELD 
camp by the side of a crystal brook he strolled out to see if he could get 
a grouse for supper. To his surprise he encountered instead a giant 
grizzly. He fired at and wounded the animal, which took refuge in a 
laurel thicket. Night was at hand and the hunter peered into the 
thicket, eager for a second shot. While he did so the bear came sud¬ 
denly out. “Scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips; his eyes 
burned like embers in the gloom.” 
Roosevelt fired again, the bullet, as it afterwards proved, shatter¬ 
ing the point of the grizzly’s heart. We must let the hunter himself 
tell the remainder of this story: 
“Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and 
challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his mouth, so that I saw the 
gleam of his white fangs; and then he charged straight at me, crash¬ 
ing and bounding through the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. 
I waited until he came to a fallen tree, raking him as he topped it with 
a ball that entered his chest and most through the cavity of his body, 
but he neither swerved nor flinched and at the moment I did not know 
that I had struck him. 
“He came steadily on and in another second was almost upon me. 
I fired for his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open 
mouth, smashing his lower jaw, and going into his neck. I leaped to 
one side almost as I pulled the trigger, and through the hanging 
smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side 
blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he struck, 
he lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle 
hit the ground; but he recovered himself and made one or two jumps 
onwards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the 
magazine—my rifle holding only four, all of which I had fired. Then 
he tried to pull up, but as he did so his muscles seemed suddently to 
give way, his head drooped, and he rolled over and over like a shot 
rabbit. Each of my first three bullets had inflicted a mortal wound.” 
The skin and head of this monarch of the Rockies are still among 
Mr. Roosevelt’s cherished treasures. 
Not so thrilling, yet in a sense more unpleasant, was his shooting 
of a “silver-tip” bear cub, which he hastened to pick up, knowing what 
it meant if Madame Bruin should happen that way and find her cub 
