My cautious attitude toward bears is a result of early experiences with them, ranging from humorous to tragic, and probably best typified by an incident which took place near Yellowstone Park in the late 1920s. I was on my first trip into the Rockies at the time and hired out on a construction job at an isolated dude ranch. Horses were being used, and their supplies, including a considerable store of oats, were kept in a large tent adjacent to that in which some of the employees slept. On the previous night a bear had gained access to the supply tent, torn open a number of oat sacks, and wasted more of the grain than it had eaten. The foreman, an old-time packer in the Park, vowed vengeance on the bear. That night when he went to bed he leaned a small, double-bitted axe against the entrance to the tent. During the night I awoke as the foreman went out the entrance in his underwear. A partial moon shed a weak light over the scene and revealed the foreman entering the other tent with the axe in his hand. A short silence was followed by a heavy splat, a tremendous grunt, and some frenzied shouts. The supply tent heaved violently, went down, and split open as the bear hurtled out and through the woods toward the creek. When order had been restored it transpired that the foreman had stolen up to the bear, which had its back to him, and had struck it across the rump as hard as he could with the flat of the axe. The element of surprise apparently was all in his favor because the startled bear charged directly away from him into the far end of the tent. Although in this instance no injuries were suffered, it has always seemed that this was an extremely foolhardy thing to do. Although one of the most laughable happenings I have ever seen, it also had all the elements of a possible tragedy. Grizzly bear _Ursus horribilis_ (Latin: a bear ... horrible) Range: Alaska, western Canada, and in the United States confined to the high mountains of the Continental Divide as far south as northern New Mexico. [Illustration: Habitat map] Habitat: Except in National Park areas, grizzlies are seldom seen, since they frequent only the most isolated places in the mountains; Transition Life Zone and higher.