Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches: An Account of the Big Game of the United States and its Chase with Horse, Hound, and RifleRoosevelt, Theodore
History
Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches: An Account of the Big Game of the United States and its Chase with Horse, Hound, and Rifle
Roosevelt, Theodore
Hunting -- United States
Old Tazewell Woody, during his thirty years' life as a hunter in the
Rockies and on the great plains, killed very many grislies. He always
exercised much caution in dealing with them; and, as it happened, he was
by some suitable tree in almost every case when he was charged. He
would accordingly climb the tree (a practice of which I do not approve
however); and the bear would look up at him and pass on without
stopping. Once, when he was hunting in the mountains with a companion,
the latter, who was down in a valley, while Woody was on the hill-side,
shot at a bear. The first thing Woody knew the wounded grisly, running
up-hill, was almost on him from behind. As he turned it seized his rifle
in its jaws. He wrenched the rifle round, while the bear still gripped
it, and pulled trigger, sending a bullet into its shoulder; whereupon it
struck him with its paw, and knocked him over the rocks. By good luck
he fell in a snow bank and was not hurt in the least. Meanwhile the bear
went on and they never got it.
Once he had an experience with a bear which showed a very curious
mixture of rashness and cowardice. He and a companion were camped in a
little tepee or wigwam, with a bright fire in front of it, lighting up
the night. There was an inch of snow on the ground. Just after they went
to bed a grisly came close to camp. Their dog rushed out and they could
hear it bark round in the darkness for nearly an hour; then the bear
drove it off and came right into camp. It went close to the fire,
picking up the scraps of meat and bread, pulled a haunch of venison down
from a tree, and passed and repassed in front of the tepee, paying no
heed whatever to the two men, who crouched in the doorway talking to one
another. Once it passed so close that Woody could almost have touched
it. Finally his companion fired into it, and off it ran, badly wounded,
without an attempt at retaliation. Next morning they followed its tracks
in the snow, and found it a quarter or a mile away. It was near a pine
and had buried itself under the loose earth, pine needles, and snow;
Woody's companion almost walked over it, and putting his rifle to its
ear blew out its brains.
In all his experience Woody had personally seen but four men who were
badly mauled by bears. Three of these were merely wounded. One was
bitten terribly in the back. Another had an arm partially chewed off.
The third was a man named George Dow, and the accident happened to him
on the Yellowstone about the year 1878. He was with a pack animal at the
time, leading it on a trail through a wood. Seeing a big she-bear with
cubs he yelled at her; whereat she ran away, but only to cache her cubs,
and in a minute, having hidden them, came racing back at him. His pack
animal being slow he started to climb a tree; but before he could get
far enough up she caught him, almost biting a piece out of the calf of
his leg, pulled him down, bit and cuffed him two or three times, and
then went on her way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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