Before the days of the repeating rifle the grizzly boldly wandered over his domain as absolute master; there was nothing for him to fear; not an aggressive foe existed. But, being ever curious, he hastened to examine whatever interested him. The novel outfit of Lewis and Clark, which appears to have attracted unusual attention even from frontier people, must naturally have aroused the highest pitch of interest in the numbers of bears congregated in places along the river. There were boats of odd type,--some with sails,--strange cargoes, men in picturesque accoutrements, and even a colored man. The frequent close approaches which the bears made in trying to satisfy their curiosity caused Lewis and Clark to think them ferocious. But is the grizzly bear ferocious? All the firsthand evidence I can find says he is not. Speaking from years of experience with him my answer is emphatically, "No!" Nearly every one whom a grizzly has killed went out with the special intention of killing a grizzly. The majority of people who hold the opinion that he is not ferocious are those who have studied him without attempting to kill him; while the majority who say that he is ferocious are those who have killed or attempted to kill him. During the greater part of my life I have lived in a grizzly bear region. I have camped for months alone and without a gun in their territory. I have seen them when alone and when with hunters, in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. I have spent weeks trailing and watching grizzlies, and their tracks in the snow showed that they often trailed me. They frequently came close, and there were times when they might have attacked me with every advantage. But they did not do so. As they never made any attack on me, nor on any one else that I know of who was not bent on killing them, I can only conclude that they are not ferocious. Once I was running down a Wyoming mountainside, leaping fallen fire-killed timber, when suddenly I surprised a grizzly by landing within a few feet of him. He leaped up and struck at me with sufficient force to have almost cut me in two had the blow landed. Then he instantly fled. This, however, was not ferocity. Plainly he thought himself attacked and struck in self-defense. There are many naturalists and frontiersmen who affirm from first-hand experience that the grizzly is not ferocious, and following are given a number of quotations from a few of these men. John Muir, who spent about forty years in the wilderness home of the grizzly bear, from 1868 to 1912, usually camped alone and never carried firearms. He has repeatedly called attention in his books to the wilderness as a place of safety, and has mentioned that grizzly bears are masters in attending to their own affairs; also that bears have effectively suggested to wilderness visitors to do likewise. In "Our National Parks" Muir says:--