Sierra Nevada are a
favourite range of the species. Besides, numerous "bear scrapes" have
occurred to the migrating bands who have crossed the great plains and
desert tracts that stretch from the Mississippi to the shores of the
South Sea. Hundreds of stories of this animal, more or less true, have
of late attained circulation through the columns of the press and the
pages of the traveller's note-book, until the grizzly bear is becoming
almost as much an object of interest as the elephant, the hippopotamus,
or the king of beasts himself.

Speaking seriously, he is a dangerous assailant. White hunters never
attack him unless when mounted and well armed; and the Indians consider
the killing a grizzly bear a feat equal to the scalping of a human foe.
These never attempt to hunt him, unless when a large party is together;
and the hunt is, among some tribes, preceded by a ceremonious feast and
a bear-dance.

It is often the lot of the solitary trapper to meet with this
four-footed enemy, and the encounter is rated as equal to that with two
hostile Indians.

Of course, both Redwood and old Ike had met with more than one "bar
scrape," and the latter was induced to relate one of his best.

"Strengers," began he, "when you scare up a grizzly, take my advice, and
gie 'im a wide berth--that is, unless yur unkimmun well mounted. Ov
coorse, ef yur critter kin be depended upon, an' thur's no brush to
'tangle him, yur safe enuf; as no grizzly, as ever I seed, kin catch up
wi' a hoss, whur the ground's open an' clur. F'r all that, whur the
timmer's clost an' brushy, an' the ground o' that sort whur a hoss mout
stummel, it are allers the safest plan to let ole Eph'm slide. I've
seed a grizzly pull down as good a hoss as ever tracked a parairy, whur
the critter hed got bothered in a thicket. The fellur that straddled
him only saved himself by hookin' on to the limb o' a tree. 'Twant two
minnits afore this child kim up--hearin' the rumpus. I hed good sight
o' the bar, an' sent a bullet--sixty to the pound--into the varmint's
brain-pan, when he immediately cawalloped over. But 'twur too late to
save the hoss. He wur rubbed out. The bar had half skinned him, an'
wur tarrin' at his guts! Wagh!"

Here the trapper unsheathed his clasp-knife, and having cut a "chunk"
from a plug of real "Jeemes's River," stuck it into his cheek, and
proceeded with his narration.

"I reck'n, I've seed a putty consid'able o' the grizzly bar in