ark. During his
stay at the Fountain Hotel, he went to the Bear Banquet Hall at high
meal-tide. There were several Blackbears feasting, but they made way for a
huge Silvertip Grizzly that came about sundown.

[Illustration]

"That," said the man who was acting as guide, "is the biggest Grizzly in
the Park; but he is a peaceable sort, or Lud knows what'd happen."

"That!" said the ranchman, in astonishment, as the Grizzly came hulking
nearer, and loomed up like a load of hay among the piney pillars of the
Banquet Hall. "That! If that is not Meteetsee Wahb, I never saw a Bear in
my life! Why, that is the worst Grizzly that ever rolled a log in the Big
Horn Basin."

"It ain't possible," said the other, "for he's here every summer, July and
August, an' I reckon he don't live so far away."

[Illustration]

"Well, that settles it," said the ranchman; "July and August is just the
time we miss him on the range; and you can see for yourself that he is a
little lame behind and has lost a claw of his left front foot. Now I know
where he puts in his summers; but I did not suppose that the old reprobate
would know enough to behave himself away from home."

The big Grizzly became very well known during the successive hotel seasons.
Once only did he really behave ill, and that was the first season he
appeared, before he fully knew the ways of the Park.

[Illustration]

He wandered over to the hotel, one day, and in at the front door. In the
hall he reared up his eight feet of stature as the guests fled in terror;
then he went into the clerk's office. The man said: "All right; if you need
this office more than I do, you can have it," and leaping over the counter,
locked himself in the telegraph-office to wire the superintendent of the
Park: "Old Grizzly in the office now, seems to want to run hotel; may we
shoot?"

The reply came: "No shooting allowed in Park; use the hose." Which they
did, and, wholly taken by surprise, the Bear leaped over the counter too,
and ambled out the back way, with a heavy _thud-thudding_ of his feet, and
a rattling of his claws on the floor. He passed through the kitchen as he
went, and, picking up a quarter of beef, took it along.

This was the only time he was known to do ill, though on one occasion he
was led into a breach of the peace by another Bear. This was a large
she-Blackbear and a noted mischief-maker. She had a wretched, sickly cub
that she was very proud of--so proud tha