The Portland daily press., 1880-03-01

forhim. He endeavored to climb tree,
and thought he was far enough to be safe,
when the huge beast rose and struck one
blow at him, fairly tearing the calf of his leg
into strings, but not knocking him out of his
crotch. Once safely in the tree the man out
sat the bear, or the the bear got tired or
sick from his wound; at any rate the animal
went away, and the man descended and
crawled to his little hunting lodge and got
into bed. nursed him until he could hop
on one leg. Then l shot deer for him and
left him. had resolved to kill the first
grizzly saw. was armed with an Allen
rifle and had plenty of cartridges. AS you
come up into the KOotenay pass there is
patch of bare ground. A few shrubs grow
on the thin, shallow soil in elumps. Around
this open is wall of dense evergreen under
growth. Riding up to the wall 1 looked
through and saw three great grizzly bears,
apparently eating something that they dug
out of the ground with their huge claws.
Here was my chance. Tying my horse with
a rawhide rope to stout tree, rifle in hand
crawled through the underbrush until
was within seventy yards of the brutes.
rested my rifle on the dead stub of limb
that stood out from a pine, and sighted at
the largest bear. Just as l was going to
pull the trigger there arose, as from out of
the ground in front of me the hunting hut of
the wounded man / had nursed. One side of
the hut was gone. l could see into it. Icould
see the bed, the man ON it, and Frank, lin
almost a Whisper could see myself bind
ing and dressing the dreadful wound /
dropped my rifle. The vision disappeared.
Three times sighted. Three times in vivid
distinctness arose this apparition of the past.
1t cOwed me. [ was afraid to shoot. ]
crawed back to my horse. I sat on him
trembling with nervousness. I was thor
oughly ashamed of myself for being such a
coward. / skulked and hid in the brush
like cayote until those bears went away"
Then in a low earnest tone, "But have res.
olutely determined to shoot the next bear ]
meet" For few seconds he was silent
and then, with far-off look, softly added
"And really believe the bear will kill me. u
With distressed laugh he jumped up, re.
built the fire, and said, IT am SO nervous
that l can't sleep. Get up, Frank, and have
one more fishing match with fellow who is
afraid of bear. Get up! will fish YOU :
match! Smallest fish cooks a midnight sup
per-" We fish and l cook the midnight
meal. Next morning we parted, never tt
meet again. l rode west, he east into thu
Sun River country.
Years after, when in Bismarck, on thu
Missouri, went into great log saloon ant
there met a party Of Montana gamblers wht
had come down the river expecting to pla,
cards along the line of the Northern Pacific
railroad Our greeting over, asked aftel
Ed Van Thusen. A silence fell on the party
The hard men silently looked into their emp
ty glasses. At length one said, ''That grant
young chap was killed by a bear in the Ma
rias pass. Here, bring us some whisky Pr
this to the bar-keeper 'sWas the bear dead9'
1 asked. eyes, a huge grizzly lay a few
yards from Ed, cut to bits, almost, with
knife" l declined more whisky, and sadl,
| left the saloon. My friend had met the fat,
| he had forseen.