A few sentences from Audubon well illustrate the wrought-up frame of mind of many hunters and authors when hunting or writing about the grizzly. Audubon says:--
"While in the neighborhood where the grizzly bear may possibly be hidden, the excited nerves will cause the heart's pulsations to quicken if but a startled ground squirrel run past, the sharp click of the lock is heard and the rifle hastily thrown to the shoulder before a second of time has assured the hunter of the trifling cause of his emotion." This suggests emotion but not accuracy.
In summing up the animals of the North and West in 1790, Edward Umfreville wrote of the "red and the grizzle bear" that "their nature is savage and ferocious, their power dangerous, and their haunts to be guarded against."
In 1795 Sir Alexander MacKenzie recorded the following:--
"The Indians entertain great apprehension of this kind of a bear, which is called the grisly bear, and they never venture to attack it except in a party of least three or four."
Henry M. Brackenridge, author of "Views of Louisiana," wrote the following from hearsay:--
"This animal is the monarch of the country which he inhabitates. The African lion or the Bengal tiger are not more terrible than he. He is the enemy of man and literally thirsts for human blood. So far from shunning, he seldom fails to attack and even to hunt him. The Indians make war upon these ferocious monsters with ceremonies as they do upon a tribe of their own species, and, in the recital of their victories, the death of one of them gives the warrior greater renown than the scalp of an enemy. He possesses an amazing strength, and attacks without hesitation and tears to pieces the largest buffalo."
The first paragraph which Lewis and Clark wrote concerning the grizzly, April 29, 1805, says:
"We proceeded early, with a moderate wind. Captain Lewis, who was on shore with one hunter, met about eight o'clock two white bears. Of the strength and ferocity of this animal the Indians had given us dreadful accounts; they never attack him but in parties of six or eight persons, and even then are often defeated with a loss of one or more of the party. Having no weapons but bows and arrows, and the bad guns which the traders supply them, they are obliged to approach very near the bear, and as no wound except through the head or heart is fatal they frequently fall a sacrifice if they miss their aim. He rather attacks than avoids man, and such is the terror which he has inspired that the Indians who go in quest of him paint themselves and perform all the superstitious rites customary when they make war on a neighboring nation. Hitherto those we had seen did not appear desirous of encountering us, but although to a skillful rifleman the danger is very much diminished, yet the white bear is still a terrible animal. On the approach of these two, both Captain Lewis and the hunter fired and each wounded a bear; one of them made his escape; the other turned upon Captain Lewis and pursued him seventy or eighty yards, but being badly wounded he could not run so fast as to prevent him reloading his piece, which he again aimed at him, and a third shot from the hunter brought him to the ground."