The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal
John Stuart Mill · en
In the midst of this performance it occurred to him that if he wanted
anything to eat he must hurry to me. So he checked his first impulse and
started to carry his second into instant effect. These incomplete
proceedings interrupted and tripped each other three or four times and
mixed themselves together. Apparently an entangled mental process
followed my appearance. Though he tumbled about in comic confusion while
trying to do two things at once, it was evident through it all that his
central idea was to get something to eat.
One September we went camping out in Wild Basin, Johnny and Jenny racing
along as happy as two boys. Sometimes they were ahead of me, sometimes
behind; occasionally they stopped to wrestle and box. At night they lay
close to me beside the camp-fire. Often I used one of them for a pillow,
and more than once I awoke to find that they were using me for one.
[Illustration: JENNY (ON THE LEFT) AND JOHNNY
_At the Age of Fourteen_]
As we were climbing along the top of a moraine, a black bear and her two
cubs came within perhaps thirty feet of us. They saw or scented us.
The cubs and their mother bristled up and ran off terribly frightened,
while Johnny and Jenny only a short distance in front of me, walked on,
both ludicrously pretending that they had not seen the black bears.
Surely they were touched with aristocracy!
The man in charge of my place neither understood nor sympathized with
wide-awake and aggressive young grizzlies, and once, when I was away, he
teased Johnny. The inevitable crash came and the man went to the
hospital. On another occasion he set a pan of sour milk on the ground
before Jenny. Bears learn to like sour milk, but Jenny had not learned
and she sourly sniffed at it. The man roared, "Drink it," and kicked her
in the ribs. Again we had to send for the ambulance.
At last it appeared best to send Johnny and Jenny to the Denver Zoo. Two
years went by before I allowed myself the pleasure of visiting them. A
number of other bears were with them in a large pen when I leaped in,
calling "Hello, Johnny!" as I did so. Johnny jumped up fully awake,
stood erect, extended both arms, and gave a few joyful grunts in the way
of greeting. Back among the other bears stood Jenny on tiptoe, eagerly
looking on.
Trailing without a Gun
I had gone into Wild Basin, hoping to see and to trail a grizzly. It was
early November and the sun shone brightly on four inches of newly fallen
snow; trailing conditions were excellent. If possible I wanted to get
close to a bear and watch his ways for a day or two.