536 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 2, 1910. 
Knowing nothing of this and probably caring 
less, Christie pushed on up the opposite slope of 
the river and into the brush. The bushes and 
small trees here were so thick and close that he 
could only pass through them with great diffi¬ 
culty. He kicked out of his snowshoes and was 
shouldering his way through the growth when 
he heard a sudden ferocious snort not thirty 
feet distant, and next moment he saw an enor¬ 
mous silver tip measuring four feet from heel 
to shoulder, at least nine feet in height and 
weighing probably 1,000 pounds, coming at him 
with the speed of an express train. The bear’s 
fore legs were as thick as the thighs of a big 
man and he had a mouth like a cave. The thick 
scrub gave him not the slightest bother; he came 
along just as if it was not there. 
Christie had little or no time to think, but 
action with him was second nature. Almost in 
the same second he heard the snort he threw 
up his rifle and fired. The shot struck the bear 
at a range of twenty feet, full in the body, and 
although the bullet was soft-nosed and driven 
by a powerful charge, it did not stop him for a 
second. Christie pumped his gun like lightning, 
but the bear was within four feet of him before 
he could send another bullet crashing into the 
massive head. On the crack of his second shot 
Christie jumped aside and felt for his knife. But 
as he jumped his foot struck a snag. He fell, 
and before he touched the snow the bear was on 
top of him. 
“He didn’t use his fore legs,” said Christie in 
telling of it. “He just naturally started in chew¬ 
ing. The shock of the fall had taken the wind 
out of me for a minute and when I opened my 
eyes, things looked sort of bad. I was right be¬ 
tween the old boy’s legs and he was just drool¬ 
ing on me. When I moved my head he let out 
a grunt that would make your hair curl, opened 
his enormous jaws and took my head in his 
mouth. I felt something give and I thought it 
was all off. I thought he had gone through my 
skull and would reach my brain. With that I 
swung my right arm up and tried to get it into 
his jaws to pry them loose, because usually a 
grizzly is like a bull dog—he just gets a hold 
and hangs on. I got my arm in all right, but I 
pried so hard that I snapped it off. This seemed 
to disconcert Old Nosey, for he let go my head 
and bit through my hand. With another snap 
he broke my jaw and tore my eye. Then I 
thought sure it was all off. He was snapping 
like a fox terrier with the fleas, and every time 
he snapped he clamped his jaws on my skull. 
The finish was just about due, and I was so 
blind and weak that I didn’t give a hang when 
the bell rang. Then, suddenly the old boy let 
go my head and sank his tusks into my thigh. 
I was trembling with pain and shock and I guess 
I lay for fully a minute half doped before I 
realized that the fight was over and that Old 
Nosey was dead. The whole affair didn’t last 
fifteen seconds and the two bullets, one right 
through the body and the other in the head, had 
taken effect at last. I couldn’t help wondering 
why the bear hadn’t hit me a swat with his paw. 
If he had, one swat would have finished me. 
For the matter of that one crunch of his jaws 
would have been plenty if he hadn’t been weak¬ 
ened by the shots. He was dying when he 
reached me, but it takes those silver tips the 
deuce of a time to die.” 
Christie, when he tells the story, touches lightly 
on the events which followed the death of the 
bear. When the pain and the cold brought him 
back to full consciousness, the prospect that lay 
before him was one calculated to daunt the stout¬ 
est. The snow was red with blood for four 
feet surrounding the scene of the struggle. 
Christie’s clothes were saturated with it and he 
was fast becoming weak. His scalp draped down 
from his bare skull at the back and on both 
sides like the flap of a patent cap; his lower jaw 
fell down limp, his left eye was torn so that he 
could not see—would never see, he thought at 
the time—his right arm was broken and torn, 
his thigh was bitten through and his right eye 
was blinded with blood. All in all, with camp 
seven miles away, Christie thought the best plan 
would be to pick out the softest spot, crawl into 
it and die. But something inside him would 
not let him do that without a fight, and against 
what seemed impossible odds, the man began to 
win his way home. 
On figuring matters out Christie remembered 
that his partner Christfield would not think of 
looking for him if he should not show up for 
two or three days, because the arrangement had 
been that Christie should be away for some time. 
Christie also remembered that there were no 
medicines at camp, because he and his partner 
had not moved all of their stores yet. His own 
common sense told him again and again that he 
was only giving himself needless agony to try 
to reach camp; that he would die on the trail or 
soon after he got home at most. But the some¬ 
thing inside of him would not let him lie down 
and invite the wolves. 
Half an hour elapsed before Christie could 
get on his feet. Once there he tottered about 
like a drunken man. The first move was to try 
to stanch the flow' of blood, but the wounds 
were so many and so varied that this was al¬ 
most impossible. Christie could not use his right 
arm at all and his left arm was strained. Using 
this arm as best he could he pulled the torn 
pieces of scalp together and bound it roughly 
with his neckerchief. Then he put his jacket 
over his head, lifted his lower jaw into place 
and caught the ends of his jacket under his chin. 
In this fashion Christie set out on the seven- 
mile tramp over the river ice to camp. On the 
w r ay, as a precaution, he made a painful detour 
of half a mile to a deserted prospector’s cabin 
to leave a message. He knew that Christfield 
would call at this shack sooner or later. Christie 
wrote a laborious left-handed note and left it 
in the cabin. In the note he told whomsoever 
found it that he had fought with and been 
mauled by a bear, that he was starting for camp 
and that if he did not arrive there his body 
would be found on the ice of the river while a 
dead grizzly would be found at the moose cache. 
Then Christie set out in the cold to stagger to 
camp. 
Fighting with himself, dragging his legs which 
became knotted and cramped from loss of blood, 
battling with the insistent desire to sit down and 
die, the man toiled over the rough ground to 
camp. He arrived at the lonely shack in the 
late afternoon. His partner was away, Christie 
did not know for how long. He crept inside 
and pitched headlong into a bunk. There he 
lay, too weak to move, hour after hour. Dark¬ 
ness had fallen before Christfield came in. He 
knew that Christie was at home, for he had seerf 
the bloody trail the wounded man left. 
“What’s up, Jim?” were Christfield’s first 
words when he opened the door. 
Christie told'him briefly of the fight and the 
result. “Take a shot of Scotch before you light 
up, George,” he said. “You’ll need your nerve 
before you look at me.” 
Christfield did as he was bid and then lighted 
a lantern. The sight of his partner almost 
knocked him out. Christie could talk only with 
great difficulty, owing to his fractured jaw, but 
when Christfield came close to him he showed 
him where the worst wounds were. “Look me 
over, George,” he instructed his partner “and 
see if I’m worth the saving.” At this time 
Christie had a haunting fear that his brain had 
been injured and that while he might live he 
would not be right in his mind. If this proved 
to be the case he had made up his mind to die 
quick and get it done wfith. Christfield’s hasty 
investigations proved that except for one spot 
the skull had not been pierced and that Christie’s 
brain was not affected. 
There were no medicines other than Scotch 
whiskey at the camp, and Christie tried to drink 
some of the liquor. Holding his jaw with his 
hand he had his partner hold the bottle to his 
mouth, but he could not swallow in this man¬ 
ner. Eventually the difficulty was solved when 
Christfield poured some of the whiskey into a 
shallow basin along with some cold tea. Christie 
put his head right into the basin and drank. This 
revived him and he felt stronger. 
By this time the two men had decided that the 
only thing to be done was to have Christie taken 
as soon as possible to Lansing, a lone trading 
post fifty miles away over rough country. Ac¬ 
cordingly, Christfield rested until about midnight 
and then set off for an Indian camp about seven 
miles distant. He.returned at daylight with two 
dog trains and Indian mushers. One of the 
toboggans was rigged into a rude cariole, and 
Christie, now so sore and stiff that the least move 
was agony, was tucked in among blankets and 
furs. 
The journey to Lansing, Christie says now, 
was the most terrible feature of the entire in¬ 
cident. The trail, or rather the course, for there 
was no trail, lay through very rugged country. 
The snow was not yet deep enough to make good 
sledding. Time and again with the dogs in full 
progress the sled would strike a sunken log and 
bound high; again it would strike bare ground 
and jerk suddenly; at other times the half 
broken dogs would stop and start again with a 
terrific jerk that stretched the hauling thongs 
to their utmost. The slightest motion meant 
pain to Christie; the sudden rude jerks and 
starts were awful. The blood which had been 
stopped to some extent began to ooze from the 
wounds again, and at every jolt of the sled the 
man felt as if his head would come off. Even 
the bliss of unconsciousness was denied him and 
he lay hour after hour in exquisite agony, feel¬ 
ing the life ebbing out of him, growing steadily 
weaker and weaker and praying for speedy 
death. 
On the afternoon of the fourth day after the 
fight with the bear, the dog trains reached Lan¬ 
sing. Lansing consists of a small stockade and 
’one or two buildings and is kept by a trader 
named Farrell, a personal friend of Christie’s. 
There was no physician nearer than Dawson City, 
but Farrell had some skill as an amateur and 
an endless store of antiseptics. He bound 
