gleam of his white fangs; and then he
charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes,
so that it was hard to aim. I waited until he came to a fallen tree,
raking him as he topped it with a ball, which entered his chest and went
through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved nor flinched, and
at the moment I did not know that I had struck him. He came steadily on,
and in another second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my
bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and going
into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger; and
through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a
vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he
struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle
hit the ground; but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps
onward, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine,
my rifle holding only four, which I had fired. Then he tried to pull up,
but as he did so his muscles seemed to give way, his head drooped, and he
rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of my first three bullets
had inflicted a mortal wound.

It was already twilight, and I merely opened the carcass, and then trotted
back to camp. Next morning I returned and with much labor took off the
skin. The fur was very fine, the animal being in excellent trim, and
unusually bright-colored. Unfortunately, in packing it out I lost the
skull, and had to supply its place with one of plaster. The beauty of the
trophy, and the memory of the circumstances under which I procured it,
make me value it perhaps more highly than any other in my house.

This is the only instance in which I have been regularly charged by a
grizzly. On the whole, the danger of hunting these great bears has been
much exaggerated. At the beginning of the present century, when white
hunters first encountered the grizzly, he was doubtless an exceedingly
savage beast, prone to attack without provocation, and a redoubtable foe
to persons armed with the clumsy small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles of the
day. But at present bitter experience has taught him caution. He has been
hunted for sport, and hunted for his pelt, and hunted for the bounty, and
hunted as a dangerous enemy to stock, until, save in the very wildest
districts, he has learned to be more wary than a deer, and to avoid man's
presence a