th, but the
suspense was too great a strain and involuntarily he moved the fingers
of his right hand. The bear did not see the movement, and when Brannan
realized that his fingers had just touched his revolver, he conceived
the desperate idea that he could reach the weapon and use it quickly
enough to blow a hole through the bear's head and save himself from the
attack which he felt he could not avert much longer by shamming.

To grasp the revolver it was necessary to stretch his arm full length,
and he tried to do that slowly and imperceptibly, but his anxiety
overcame his prudence and he made a movement that the watchful Grizzly
detected. Instantly the bear pinned the arm with one paw, placed the
other upon Brannan's breast and with his teeth tore out the biceps
muscle. Brannan had the good luck to faint at that moment, and when
his senses again returned he was alone. The Grizzly had watched him
until satisfied that there was no more harm in him, and then left him.

Brannan managed to get to his cabin and eventually recovered, only to
be murdered some years later for the gold dust he had stored away.

NOTE.--For many of the facts in this chapter of adventures with
grizzlies in Placer and El Dorado counties in 1850 and 1851, I am
indebted to Dr. R. F. Rooney, of Auburn, Cal., who obtained the details
at first hand from pioneers.--A. K.

CHAPTER II.

THE STORY OF MONARCH.

Early in 1889, the editor of a San Francisco newspaper sent me out to
catch a Grizzly. He wanted to present to the city a good specimen of
the big California bear, partly because he believed the species was
almost extinct, and mainly because the exploit would be unique in
journalism and attract attention to his paper. Efforts to obtain a
Grizzly by purchase and "fake" a story of his capture had proved
fruitless for the sufficient reason that no captive Grizzly of the true
California type could be found, and the enterprising journal was
constrained to resort to the prosaic expedient of laying a foundation
of fact and veritable achievement for its self-advertising.

[Illustration: Ernest Thompson Seton's Sketch of Monarch.]

The assignment was given to me because I was the only man on the paper
who was supposed to know anything about bears. Such knowledge as I
had, and it was not very extensive, had been acquired on hunting trips,
some successful and more otherwise, in the Sierra Nevada and Cascades.
I had had no experience in