Trailing is adventurous. Many of the best lessons of woodcraft that I
have learned, several of the greatest and most beneficial outings that I
have had, were those during which I followed, sometimes day and night,
that master of strategy, the grizzly bear. A few times in trailing the
grizzly I have outwitted him, but more frequently he has outwitted me.
Every grizzly has speed, skill, and endurance. He has mental capacity
and often shows astounding plan, caution, courage, and audacity.
Trailing without a gun is red-blooded life, scouting of the most
exacting and manly order. The trailer loses himself in his part in the
primeval play of the wilderness. It is doubtful if any other experience
is as educational as the trailing of the grizzly bear.
When the Grizzly Plays
One of the best play-exhibitions that I have ever enjoyed was that of a
grizzly juggling with an eight-foot log in a mountain stream. In
examining the glaciation of the Continental Divide, five or six miles
west of Long's Peak, I came out of the woods into a little meadow by the
East Inlet of Grand Lake, where I saw the grizzly and the log, rolling
and tumbling in the water. The log bobbed and plunged about as the bear
struggled with it in the swift current.
The big, shaggy grizzly, wild and gray, fitted into the wild mountain
scene. A peak bristling with ledges and dotted with snow towered in the
blue sky behind. Down the steep incline of the peak the clear, cold
stream came with subdued roar, as it rushed the inclines and the rapids
of its solid rock-cut channel. The opposite wall of the cañon was of
glacier-polished granite, while behind me the wall rose steeply, covered
with a crowded growth of towering spruce. It was a grand wilderness
playground.
As I watched from the edge of the woods, the grizzly once hugged the log
between fore paws, stood it on end in the water, and then tried to climb
it. His weight caused it to tip him over. The log escaped from the bear
and started to float away, but he was after it with a rush.
Another time he lay across it and splashed about like a boy on a pole
trying to learn to swim. Getting too far forward, he rolled under the
log. Struggling on his back, he grasped it between all four feet. Then
he took it beneath one forearm and suddenly ducked it into deep water.
It shot out into the middle of the stream with the bear splashing wildly
in pursuit. At last he succeeded in securing a good hold with his teeth
and was tugging the log toward the bank when he saw a stick floating
down stream. As he turned to seize it, his wave pushed the stick farther
away and at the same time gave the log a start down stream. Turning from
the stick, he hurried to seize the log. Pushing it end on against the
rocky bank, and pressing against it with one fore paw, he looked over
his shoulder as though intending to seize the stick. But this was out of
reach, hurrying down stream.
[Illustration: CATCHING BLACK BEAR CUBS]