During the last few seconds of his life, after the grizzly receives a
fatal wound, he sometimes fights in an amazingly effective and deadly
manner. As an old bear-hunter once said, "the grizzly is likely to do a
lot of execution after he is nominally dead." Hundreds of hunters have
been wounded and scores of others killed by grizzlies which they were
trying to kill or capture. Hundreds of others have escaped death or
serious injury by extremely narrow margins.
A grizzly appears to have caused the death of the first white man to die
within the bounds of Colorado. This happened on the plains in the
eastern part of the State. Seeing the grizzly in the willows near camp,
the man went out to kill him. The wounded grizzly knocked him down and
mauled him so severely that he died.
In southern Colorado I saw a frightened hunter on horseback pursued by a
mother grizzly. He was chasing her cubs, when she suddenly charged him.
The horse wheeled and ran. Although the hunter urged the horse to its
utmost, the bear was almost upon them when his dogs rushed in and
distracted her.
Hunters claim that if a man feign death when knocked down by a grizzly
he is not likely to be injured. James Capen Adams appears to have saved
himself a number of times by this method. I have not had occasion to try
the experiment.
An old bear-hunter told me that he once saved himself from what seemed
to be certain death, in a most unusual manner. A grizzly knocked him
sprawling, then leaped upon him to chew him up. In falling, however, the
hunter had grabbed up a stone. With this he struck the bear a smashing
blow on the tip of his nose as the bear landed upon him. The bear backed
off with a roar of pain. This gave the hunter opportunity to seize his
rifle and fire a fatal shot.
Three or four men who have been severely bitten and shaken by grizzlies
have testified that they felt no pain at the time from these injuries. I
cannot account for this. Livingstone, the African explorer, also states
that he felt no pain when a lion was chewing him.
I once witnessed a grizzly-roping in Montana that had rare fighting and
adventure in it. Two cowboys pursued a grizzly nearly to camp, when
several others came riding out with whirling ropes seeking fun. They
roped the bear; but a horse was pulled off his feet and dragged, a
cowboy was ditched into a bunch of cactus, another cowboy lost his
saddle, the cinches giving way under the strain, and a horse struck in
the flank had to be shot. Meantime the bear got away and stampeded the
entire herd of cattle.