rters, with a grisly bent on
mischief, means death.

Occasionally the bear, although vicious, is also frightened, and passes
on after giving one or two bites; and frequently a man who is knocked
down is rescued by his friends before he is killed, the big beast mayhap
using his weapons with clumsiness. So a bear may kill a foe with a
single blow of its mighty fore-arm, either crushing in the head or
chest by sheer force of sinew, or else tearing open the body with its
formidable claws; and so on the other hand he may, and often does,
merely disfigure or maim the foe by a hurried stroke. Hence it is common
to see men who have escaped the clutches of a grisly, but only at the
cost of features marred beyond recognition, or a body rendered almost
helpless for life. Almost every old resident of western Montana or
northern Idaho has known two or three unfortunates who have suffered in
this manner. I have myself met one such man in Helena, and another in
Missoula; both were living at least as late as 1889, the date at which
I last saw them. One had been partially scalped by a bear's teeth; the
animal was very old and so the fangs did not enter the skull. The other
had been bitten across the face, and the wounds never entirely healed,
so that his disfigured visage was hideous to behold.

Most of these accidents occur in following a wounded or worried bear
into thick cover; and under such circumstances an animal apparently
hopelessly disabled, or in the death throes, may with a last effort
kill one or more of its assailants. In 1874 my wife's uncle, Captain
Alexander Moore, U. S. A., and my friend Captain Bates, with some men
of the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry, were scouting in Wyoming, near the Freezeout
Mountains. One morning they roused a bear in the open prairie and
followed it at full speed as it ran towards a small creek. At one spot
in the creek beavers had built a dam, and as usual in such places there
was a thick growth of bushes and willow saplings. Just as the bear
reached the edge of this little jungle it was struck by several balls,
both of its forelegs being broken. Nevertheless, it managed to shove
itself forward on its hind-legs, and partly rolled, partly pushed itself
into the thicket, the bushes though low being so dense that its body was
at once completely hidden. The thicket was a mere patch of brush, not
twenty yards across in any direction. The leading troopers reached the
edge almost as the bear tumbled in. One of