Notwithstanding the great courage and ferocity of this formidable beast, he will utter the most pitiable groans and howls when seriously or mortally wounded.
Two brothers were prospecting in a range of mountains near the headwaters of the Stinking Water river. The younger of the two, though an ablebodied man, and capable of doing a good day's work with a pick or shovel, was weak-minded, and the elder brother never allowed him to go any distance away from camp or their work alone. He, however, sent him one evening to the spring, a few rods off, to bring a kettleful of water. The spring was in a deep gorge, and the trail to it wound through some fissures in the rock. As the young man passed under a shelving rock, an immense old female grizzly, that had taken up temporary quarters there, reached out and struck a powerful blow at his head, but fortunately could not reach far enough to do him any serious harm. The blow knocked his hat off, and her claws caught his scalp, and laid it open clear across the top of his head in several ugly gashes. The force of the blow sent him spinning around, and not knowing enough to be frightened, he attacked her savagely with the only weapon he had at hand--the camp kettle.
The elder brother heard the racket, and hastily catching up his rifle and hurrying to the scene of the disturbance, found his brother vigorously belaboring the bear over the head with the camp kettle, and the bear striking savage blows at him, any one of which, if she could have reached him, would have torn his head from his shoulders. Three bullets from the rifle, fired in rapid succession, loosened her hold upon the rocks, and she tumbled lifelessly into the trail. The poor idiotic boy could not even then realize the danger through which he had passed, and could only appease his anger by continuing to maul the bear over the head with the camp kettle for several minutes after she was dead.
Some years ago I went into the mountains with a party of friends to hunt elk. Our guide told us we should find plenty of grouse along the trail, from the day we left the settlements; that on the third day out we should find elk, and that it would therefore be useless to burden our pack-horses with meat. We accordingly took none save a small piece of bacon.