hunter must be cautious in meddling with a wounded animal which has
retreated into a dense thicket, and had been once or twice roused; and
such a beast, when it does turn, will usually charge again and again,
and fight to the last with unconquerable ferocity. The short distance
at which the bear can be seen through the underbrush, the fury of his
charge, and his tenacity of life make it necessary for the hunter on
such occasions to have steady nerves and a fairly quick and accurate
aim. It is always well to have two men in following a wounded bear under
such conditions. This is not necessary, however, and a good hunter,
rather than lose his quarry, will, under ordinary circumstances, follow
and attack it, no matter how tangled the fastness in which it has
sought refuge; but he must act warily and with the utmost caution
and resolution, if he wishes to escape a terrible and probably fatal
mauling. An experienced hunter is rarely rash, and never heedless; he
will not, when alone, follow a wounded bear into a thicket, if by that
exercise of patience, skill, and knowledge of the game's habits he can
avoid the necessity; but it is idle to talk of the feat as something
which ought in no case to be attempted. While danger ought never to be
needlessly incurred, it is yet true that the keenest zest in sport comes
from its presence, and from the consequent exercise of the qualities
necessary to overcome it. The most thrilling moments of an American
hunter's life are those in which, with every sense on the alert, and
with nerves strung to the highest point, he is following alone into
the heart of its forest fastness the fresh and bloody footprints of an
angered grisly; and no other triumph of American hunting can compare
with the victory to be thus gained.

These big bears will not ordinarily charge from a distance of over a
hundred yards; but there are exceptions to this rule. In the fall of
1890 my friend Archibald Rogers was hunting in Wyoming, south of the
Yellowstone Park, and killed seven bears. One, an old he, was out on a
bare table-land, grubbing for roots, when he was spied. It was early
in the afternoon, and the hunters, who were on a high mountain slope,
examined him for some time through their powerful glasses before making
him out to be a bear. They then stalked up to the edge of the wood which
fringed on the table-land on one side, but could get no nearer than
about three hundred yards, the plains being barren of al