The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-28
LIVE BEARS ARE HEAVY,
But Dead and Harmless one That Weighs One housand Pounds Is q M .nster.

Weighs One h0ushhu fouhos ID
 M .nster.
 From Forest and Stream.l
 I have hunted and trapped for years in the Rocky Mountains and coast ranges, the home of the grizzly, just for the money that made by 1t, and in all my experience have never killed nor even seen bear that I thought would weigh half as much as some l have read about, and I have never known any one who ever saw bear weighed that tipped the scales at fif- teen hundred pounds. Nine out of ev- cry ten bears that are reported as weighing all the way from one thou sand pounds up to twenty-three hum dred pounds were killed many miles away from a pair of scales.
 The largest bear I ever killed, or rather helped to kill, was when my partner and I were hunting and trap ping on the Yak river in northwestern Montana in the winter of 1889. We had had very. good luck with beaver, marten and lynx, and other land fur. Along towards spring we took a pack of grub and blankets on our backs, and went up a creek that empties in the Yak. We intended to hunt in that To- cality for bear; and, as we always take the easiest way to hunt, we kill an elk deer, or any kind of game we run to come. We had lots of bait up that creek, and killed some more on another creek. Then our grub was about out, and we had to go back and pack up enough to last us through the hunting. When we got through packing our grub we began,to see where there had been @ bear taking the bait. A warm Chinook wind at that time did the work, for we were killing one now and then. We had traps and guns for bear, also four good dogs, so we were kept hustling taking care of the hides.
 had not been up to the furthest bait for several days. When I had time to go D. said that he would keep me com pany, as he wanted to raise a cache of traps he had made in the fall when trapping for beaver. We had got al- | most up to the bait when saw a bear | track. It was whale. told D. that most likely the old boy was handy | around the bait, for the tracks were fresh. When we came in sight of the bait the bear had either heard or smelt us for we saw that he had been ca ting on the bait. We put the dogs on the track and followed after them as fast as we could travel, over wind-falls and through underbrush, with snowshoes We had shoeing away into the spring in,. the mountains. We had not gone more than half mile when heard one of the dogs howl. Then I knew that the bear was our meat. We went dowr to where the dogs were, and there was bear that was the grandpa of all the bears either of us had ever seen. Il was a bald-faced grizzly. He wa: fighting the dogs. He would run after one, when one of the others would bitt him on his heels It was Imaginable tt see him. He did not know what kint |
 thought it was getting too warm fol
 his rear end, so he sat up on hi'
 haunches. That was the opportunity
 we were waiting for. We both "turnet loose" with our .4O.9O Sharps, and thu
 bear tumbled all in a heap. w
 skinned him and found where one O
 the bullets had broken his neck, ant
 the other his shoulder.
 I had never seen such an animal be
 fore for size asked D. what it would weigh. That was the first bear I hat ever wanted to weigh. D. said he hat
 no idea, but we could try and pull him
 we could just move him; he was lyin,
 on snow that was pretty solid. We hal , a stick through his gambrels, so w , had a good pull at him. Both of u
 were over six feet tall and weighed
 over two hundred pounds, so we wer , not very weak. We talked about tn weight of the bear, and we thought h would probably weigh eight hundre'
 pounds. His hide when stretches
 measured ten feet three inches iron tip of nose to the tail and was eigh feet nine inches wide. When we wen down in the spring we showed the hid around, and old hunters said that
 was the largest bear hide they had eve seen. We killed sixteen bears that spring ) but none of them was as large by one , third as the big one I do not believ
 that the big one would weigh at tn , very most nine hundred pounds, and h = was very fat. think he had not bee ut very long, as it was in April whe [ he was killed. Now, my notion is tha
 all these bears that weigh from fiftee hundred pounds up have been kille around a camp fire. would like t
 hear from any one who ever saw bea , weighed that tipped the scales at fiji
 teen hundred pounds. A person wh
 had never seen bear running wtl would say on seeing his first that it wa
 the biggest thing ever wrapped up 1 hide. The first bear ever saw locke ! as big as a mountain, but after ha killed him he shfunk down to 2 sna
 black one. I could pack him 2 T around he was so small.