The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1894-10-06
IT is HARD TO KILL A GRIZZLY.

He Can Do Plenty Of Damage When He -
"Nominally Dead"
Personally / have more respect for
his majesty, the grizzly bear, than for
any other animal ever trailed, the
tiger not excepted, writes w. I. Horna-
day in an article on the bears OF North
America in the August number Of st.
Nicholas. 1t is quite true that many
an able-bodied grizzly is caught nap
ping and killed ''dead easy" as the
baseball language says. but SO are big
tigers also, for that matter. In fact, l
know of one large tiger weighing with
in five pounds of five hundred who was
promptly laid low by two bullets from
q mere popgun of rifle, and there was
no fuss about it either.
1t is easy enough to kill grizzly at
q good safe distance of one hundred
yards or SO, which allows the hunter to
fire from three to six shots by the time
the teeth and claws get dangerously
near. But to attack fully grown and
wideawalze ursus horribilis in brushy
ground at twenty or thirty yards dis
tance is no child's play. AS an old
hunter once quantity expressed it to
me: "a grizzly bar'll git up an come at
ye with blood in his eye after he's nom
inally deadr' The point of it is, this
bear is so big and so envelopcd in long,
shaggy hair, his head is SO wedgc-hke,
his strength and tenacity OF life SO
great, and his rage when wounded so
furious that at short range he is hard
to kill quickly and kill so dead that he
cannot get blow at the hunter.
The strength of grizzly's arm is
tremendous, and when the blow comes
accompanied with claws five or six
inches long, like so many hooks of steel
on sledge-hammer it tears to shreds
what it fails to crush. There are many
authentic instances on record of hunt
ers and trappers who have been killed
by grizzly bears, and believe it could
be proved that this animal has killed
more men than all the other wild an
imals in North America combined, ex-
cepting the skunks and their rabies.
In the days of the early pioneers the
only rifles used were the muzzle-load-
ing, hair triggar squirrel rifles Of small
caliber, and they were no match for the
burly grizzly, either in speed or
strength. AS a result bruin had the
best of it, and in time brought about a
perfect reign Of terror among the
frontiersmen who trespassed upon his
domain. For my part, I certainly
would not want to attack big grizzly
at short range with my fathers old
Kentucky rifle of thirty-two caliber,
unless had my will made and all my
earthly affairs in shape to be left for q
long pc ~iod. But with the rise Of the
breech-loader the tables turned, and,
like all other dangerous animals. the
grizzly soon found that the odds were
against him. To be sure, he still kills
his hunter now and then, sometimes by
one awful stroke of his paw, and some
times by biting his victim to death.
But he has almost ceased to attack
men wilfully and without cause, as he
once did. Unless he is wounded, or
or thinks he is cornered and
about to be attacked, he will generally
run whenever he discovers man. But
when he is attacked, and especially if
wounded he gets mad clean through.
Then he will fight anything, even cir
cular saw. so it is said, and give it five
turns the start.