He wandered over to the hotel, one day, and in at the front door. In the
hall he reared up his eight feet of stature as the guests fled in terror;
then he went into the clerk's office. The man said: "All right; if you need
this office more than I do, you can have it," and leaping over the counter,
locked himself in the telegraph-office to wire the superintendent of the
Park: "Old Grizzly in the office now, seems to want to run hotel; may we
shoot?"
The reply came: "No shooting allowed in Park; use the hose." Which they
did, and, wholly taken by surprise, the Bear leaped over the counter too,
and ambled out the back way, with a heavy _thud-thudding_ of his feet, and
a rattling of his claws on the floor. He passed through the kitchen as he
went, and, picking up a quarter of beef, took it along.
This was the only time he was known to do ill, though on one occasion he
was led into a breach of the peace by another Bear. This was a large
she-Blackbear and a noted mischief-maker. She had a wretched, sickly cub
that she was very proud of--so proud that she went out of her way to seek
trouble on his behalf. And he, like all spoiled children, was the cause of
much bad feeling. She was so big and fierce that she could bully all the
other Blackbears, but when she tried to drive off old Wahb she received a
pat from his paw that sent her tumbling like a football. He followed her
up, and would have killed her, for she had broken the peace of the Park,
but she escaped by climbing a tree, from the top of which her miserable
little cub was apprehensively squealing at the pitch of his voice. So the
affair was ended; in future the Blackbear kept out of Wahb's way, and he
won the reputation of being a peaceable, well-behaved Bear. Most persons
believed that he came from some remote mountains where were neither guns
nor traps to make him sullen and revengeful.
[Illustration]
III
Every one knows that a Bitter-root Grizzly is a bad Bear. The Bitter-root
Range is the roughest part of the mountains. The ground is everywhere cut
up with deep ravines and overgrown with dense and tangled underbrush.
It is an impossible country for horses, and difficult for gunners, and
there is any amount of good Bear-pasture. So there are plenty of Bears and
plenty of trappers.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account