state of lethargy; whereas in the south only the
she's with young and the fat he-bears retire for the sleep, and these
but for a few weeks, and only if the season is severe.

When the bear first leaves its den the fur is in very fine order, but it
speedily becomes thin and poor, and does not recover its condition until
the fall. Sometimes the bear does not betray any great hunger for a few
days after its appearance; but in a short while it becomes ravenous.
During the early spring, when the woods are still entirely barren and
lifeless, while the snow yet lies in deep drifts, the bear, hungry
brute, both maddened and weakened by long fasting, is more of a flesh
eater than at any other time. It is at this period that it is most apt
to turn true beast of prey, and show its prowess either at the expense
of the wild game, or of the flocks of the settler and the herds of the
ranchman. Bears are very capricious in this respect, however. Some are
confirmed game, and cattle-killers; others are not; while yet others
either are or are not accordingly as the freak seizes them, and
their ravages vary almost unaccountably, both with the season and the
locality.

Throughout 1889, for instance, no cattle, so far as I heard, were
killed by bears anywhere near my range on the Little Missouri in western
Dakota; yet I happened to know that during that same season the ravages
of the bears among the herds of the cowmen in the Big Hole Basin, in
western Montana, were very destructive.

In the spring and early summer of 1888, the bears killed no cattle near
my ranch; but in the late summer and early fall of that year a big bear,
which we well knew by its tracks, suddenly took to cattle-killing. This
was a brute which had its headquarters on some very large brush bottoms
a dozen miles below my ranch house, and which ranged to and fro across
the broken country flanking the river on each side. It began just before
berry time, but continued its career of destruction long after the wild
plums and even buffalo berries had ripened. I think that what started it
was a feast on a cow which had mired and died in the bed of the creek;
at least it was not until after we found that it had been feeding at
the carcass and had eaten every scrap, that we discovered traces of
its ravages among the livestock. It seemed to attack the animals wholly
regardless of their size and strength; its victims including a large
bull and a beef steer, as well as cows, yearl