"The `Emeralder' and myself had formed a project to secure a menagerie of wild native animals, and adjoining our lodge we had a large cage, in the compartments of which were wolves, foxes, California lions, pumas, panthers, and a host of smaller fry, including birds. These we had, for the most part, secured when very young. We had long been most anxious to get a specimen of the `grizzly,' but all our efforts in that way had failed. One morning, while we were at breakfast, a Mexican hide-dealer, who lived in a cabin a few miles from us, and from whom we had purchased several animals, called on us accompanied by four or five half-naked Indians, and told us that a large `grizzly,' called by the natives `Mountain Thunder,' had come down from the hills during the night and made a supper of a fat ox belonging to the Mexican. The Indians we had met in our hunting excursions had frequently told us of this monster. According to their reports he must have been near one hundred years of age, and of a size that a bear had never before attained. Their fathers had known that he lived years before they were born. This was not unlikely, for bears live to a great age; even in captivity they have been known to live a hundred years. We set out for the cabin of the Mexican. Near the house was the cattle-yard, the scene of the last night's affair. The yard covered an area of about an acre, surrounded by a stout fence formed of large poles or stakes driven into the ground, and about ten feet high; within this the stock were all driven at night to preserve them from the attacks of bears, wolves, etc. On the side of the yard farthest from the dwelling, Bruin had made his entrance and left full proof of his strength behind him. Three or four large posts, about twelve inches in diameter, were torn from the earth in which they had been firmly planted to the depth of four feet; one had been broken at the surface of the ground, apparently by a stroke of the bear's paw, as the indentures of his claws were an inch deep in the solid timber. "After seizing the ox, he had thrown him on his back and decamped. We followed his track up the banks of a small stream towards the mountains for some miles. I measured the prints of his hind-feet in the soft clay, and found they were eighteen inches in length from the heel to the mark of his claws, and a little over nine inches wide.