The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

THE GRIZZLY BEAR'S COURAGE. As a subject, this is a hazardous risk, because so many men are able to tell all about it. Judging from reliable records of the ways and means of the grizzly bear, I think we must award the second prize for courage to "Old Ephraim." The list of his exploits in scaring pioneers, in attacking hunters, in robbing camps, and finally in bear- handling and almost killing two guides in the Yellowstone Park, is long and thrilling. The record reaches back to the days of Lewis and Clark, who related many wild adventures with bears. The grizzlies of their day were very courageous, but even then they were not greatly given to attacking men quite unprovoked! In those days of bow-and-arrow Indians, and of white men armed only with ineffective muzzle-loading pea rifles, using only weak black powder, the grizzlies had an even chance with their human adversaries, and sometimes they took first money. In those days the courage of the grizzly was at its highest peak; and it was then conceded by all frontiersmen that the grizzly was thoroughly courageous, and always ready to fight. In the light of subsequent history, and in order to be just to the grizzly, we claim that his fighting was in self defense, for even in those days the unwounded bear preferred to run rather than to fight unnecessarily. The rise of the high-power, long-range repeating rifle has made the grizzly bear a different animal from what he was in the days of Lewis and Clark. He has learned, thoroughly, the supreme deadliness of man's new weapons, and he knows that he is no longer able to meet men on even terms. Consequently, he runs, he hides, he avoids man, everywhere save in the Yellowstone Park, where he has found out that firearms are prohibited. There he has broken the truce so often that his offenses have had to be met with stern disciplinary measures that have made for the safety of tourists and guides.