with him; he usually fights desperately and dies hard when
wounded and cornered, and exceptional individuals take the aggressive on
small provocation.

During the years I lived on the frontier I came in contact with many
persons who had been severely mauled or even crippled for life by
grislies; and a number of cases where they killed men outright were
also brought under my ken. Generally these accidents, as was natural,
occurred to hunters who had roused or wounded the game.

A fighting bear sometimes uses his claws and sometimes his teeth. I have
never known one to attempt to kill an antagonist by hugging, in spite
of the popular belief to this effect; though he will sometimes draw an
enemy towards him with his paws the better to reach him with his teeth,
and to hold him so that he cannot escape from the biting. Nor does the
bear often advance on his hind legs to the attack; though, if the man
has come close to him in thick underbrush, or has stumbled on him in his
lair unawares, he will often rise up in this fashion and strike a single
blow. He will also rise in clinching with a man on horseback. In 1882
a mounted Indian was killed in this manner on one of the river bottoms
some miles below where my ranch house now stands, not far from the
junction of the Beaver and Little Missouri. The bear had been hunted
into a thicket by a band of Indians, in whose company my informant, a
white squaw-man, with whom I afterward did some trading, was travelling.
One of them in the excitement of the pursuit rode across the end of
the thicket; as he did so the great beast sprang at him with wonderful
quickness, rising on its hind legs, and knocking over the horse and
rider with a single sweep of its terrible fore-paws. It then turned
on the fallen man and tore him open, and though the other Indians came
promptly to his rescue and slew his assailant, they were not in time to
save their comrade's life.

A bear is apt to rely mainly on his teeth or claws according to whether
his efforts are directed primarily to killing his foe or to making good
his own escape. In the latter event he trusts chiefly to his claws. If
cornered, he of course makes a rush for freedom, and in that case he
downs any man who is in his way with a sweep of his great paw, but
passes on without stopping to bite him. If while sleeping or resting in
thick brush some one suddenly stumbles on him close up he pursues
the same course, less from anger than from fear, be