Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-08-14
HIS FIRST AND LAST GRIZZLY,
Anybody Wishing to Hunt This Bear
Had Better Take q Gatling Gun.

Anybody Wishing to Hunt This Bear
Had Better Take a Calling Gun.
My friend, Tom Coleman, and l were dis
cussing various matters over our after din
ner cigars at an up town restaurant the
other evening when the conversation
turned on hunting and fishing experiences.
Tom had just returned to this city from an
extended tour through southern Califor-
mia. Incidentally 1 asked him if he had run
across any grizzlies on the southern coast
range.
amy grizzlies?" repeated Tom. "Well,
rather. That is" he added, Il ran across,
as you call it, just one solitary grizzly
bear. More properly speaking, though,
the bear ran across me. 1t was my first
and last grizzly, too, 1 assure you. 1 was
down in San Bernardino county when it
happened.
II had been trout fishing all the morn
ing with indifferent success, and about
noon I concluded to rest awhile. An old
log lying under a clump of manzanita
bushes afforded me a good seat, and I had
soon filled my pipe and was smoking away
with that degree of natural comfort which
a glorious days sport in the open air
always inspires.
II had started out with old Jack Water
man, at whose ranch I was stopping, but
Jack had become tired and gone home. l
had no gun or weapon of any kind, but
didn't suppose I would need any, as Jack
had told me OF starting that they waren't
nuthin to shoot round these parts but
bars, and they amt been a bar seen
round here for a year past
A l sat there contentedly smoking I
thought l heard a rustling in the bushes
just back of me. Some bird, I thought. I
then picked up a stone and threw it in the
direction of the sound. Pretty big bird,
thought l. as the rustling continued louder
than before. I then threw q larger stone,
and Immediately following my shot the
sound of some heavy body crashing through
the chaparral made me think that some of
old Waterman's cattle had strayed that
way. l was satisfied with this, and sat
down again and resumed smoking.
"Say," remarked Tom suddenly, 'can
you imagine a bear as big rs a house? MOI
Well, that's just what 1 saw as l suddenly
turned around. That's what was making
the noise in the bushes, a bear, a regular
grizzly, and u whopper.
Scared? Well, l should say so. My
teeth chartered like a pair of Spanish cas-
tanets. There he stood, though, not more
than thirty feet away, sort of sizing me up,
as it were, and all 1 could do was to sit
there and stare back at him. WASN'T sure
whether grizzly bears, like Bengal tigers,
made their meals off strangers or not.
This animal looked as if he could have
swallowed me whole if he wanted to, and
the more l looked at him the bigger he
seemed to get.
"Well, l just sat there as still as a bump
on a log for, it seemed to me, a number of
hours. Then the bear deliberately walked
up to where l was sitting. Oh, Lord
thought l, Pm done for now surely. Well,
sir, that brute just walked by me, gave a
snort and a sniff as if to say, What excuse
have you got for living, anyhow? and then
off it went down the ravine.
81 must have sat there an hour after that
without moving. Finally 1 braced up and
started for home. I forgot both pole and
fish. Old maj Waterman thought I'd been
bitten by a rattlesnake when I reached
home that evening.
"No, Stree" observed Tom, "Im not
hankering after grizzlies this week. That
same bear is there yet, rve no doubt, only
if any one wants to go out there and hunt
for it, l advise him to take a Gatling CUR
with him, that's all."-New York Herald.