The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal
John Stuart Mill · en
Bear stories have a fascination all their own. Here is one of five men
who were hunting in northwestern Montana, a section of high and rugged
mountain-peaks, snow-fields, and glaciers, well-nigh inaccessible, and
wholly uninhabited save by wild animals. Two of the men went off to a
distant glacier-basin for big game, separating and going on opposite
sides of a ridge. One of them after a steep climb came upon a grizzly
cub, so large as to appear full-grown except to the most careful
observer. He killed the bear with three cartridges from his Mauser
rifle, and then, leaning the rifle against a rock, stooped over to
examine his prize. Suddenly he heard a fearsome cry and a swift rush.
Turning, he saw the mother bear coming for him and not more than sixty
feet away.
Springing to his rifle, he put two steel-clad bullets into the grizzly,
emptying his gun. With remarkable coolness he slipped in another
cartridge and sent a third bullet into her. But Mauser bullets are small
and an enraged grizzly is a hard thing to stop. The three bullets did
not stop this mother bear, frantic at the sight of her dead cub. With
one stroke of her paw she knocked the hunter into a gulch, eight feet
below. Then she sprang down after him, caught him in her mouth, shook
him as a dog might shake a doll, and dropped him. She caught him up
again, his face between her tusks, shook him, and again dropped him. A
third time she snatched him up. But now the little Mauser bullets had
done their work, and she fell dead across the hunter's feet.
It was high time, for the man was in little better condition than the
bear. His scalp and cheek and throat were torn open, there were five
gaping wounds in his chest, his thigh bore an irregular tear two or
three inches wide from which the flesh hung in ragged strips, and his
left wrist was broken and the bones protruding through the twisted
flesh. His companion, alarmed by the six shots, hurried to the hunter.
He bound up his wounds, set him on a horse, guided him for two hours
across country without a trail, and got him to camp at nightfall. But to
save the man's life it was necessary to get him to the railroad in short
order. He was put on a horse with a man on each side to support him, and
for eleven hours the party climbed down the five miles through forest
and jungle, cutting their way as they went. At dark, completely
exhausted, they flagged a limited train. The hunter was hurried to a
hospital and operated upon and his life saved.