The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-12-18
The Intelligence Of the Bear.

There are people who have had more
frequent dealings with bears than
have fallen to my lot. l make bold
TO say, however, that the number of
old-timers in Montana is not large OF
men whose adventures with these in
teresting creatures includes an expe-
rience so providential and. at the same
time. so unique as the one which /
confidently submit in the pending COM
petition. i am not much given to
hunting, yet i had ar adventure in
which any votary of the sport might
justly take lifelong pride. At the time
when IL occurred i was a struggling
young lawyer living in Virginia City.
Its scene is the Madison valley. in
what is now known as the Yellowstone
park. This was long before the region
had been fully explored; indeed. my
trip was mad shortly after Governor
Hauser and a few other adventures
had made their pioneer journeys.
These first reports made by these ear
ly explorers were not believ- though
we know them now to have been Ear
within the facts. In a similar way
the facts in my story might have been
doubted, until the growing knowledge
concerning the physical phenomena of
that wonderful region set them quite
beyond the realm of doubt.
/ was over in the lower park coun-
n.y. HdNluS EOHt III ONtI lut III IRE
hole trail, and was making a little
journey into the section o the
Fountain Geyser basin. 1 saw then for
the first time the great hot springs Of
this playground of the giants. and /
need hardly say that they excited in
bosom emotions of the EXTREMIST
wonder. We visit this region now with
carelessness Inc Indifference, but it
was not thus in the early days, when
it's possibilities were less thoroughly
exploited.
My companion was an old-time
friend who was IN enthusiastic stu
den of natural history. We went over
the western range into the Firehole
basin. in the early autumn, intending
to make a rapid trip. We were not
very well QUILTED, having -four and
bacon enough for a couple of weeks
only. but we thought we could get all
the game we needed to make up any
deficiency, and 80 last IL out for a
couple of months. OF course, you
know what a place hat country r. for
sudden n heavy snow falls. Some
times is SHOWS three or four feet N a
night. n keeps it up. so that when
winter once begins it is impossible 20
travel.
We a not been in the geyser basin
W weeks before there came the worst
storm / nave ever seen. 1t be-
gan about dusk on the evening of n
day late in December. / remember we
were talking about the good old Christ
times at home, which then seemed
far enough away. II showed fast and
hard, and by morning we saw that we
were prisoners in the valley. There
was not a sign of game anywhere
about us. and we We're nearly out of
provisions. All the elk had gone over
TO the Hayden valley and Pelican
country. and we could not see so
much as the trail of a snowshoe rab-
bit. Starvation seemed a very likely
thing; but you know in those days
rarely worried about how they
were going to get out OF trouble until
trouble actually came.
That country vas then, as ii is to-
day. one OF the greatest bear countries
in the entire West. and as this was in
the early days, there were 10 bears
where there is one now. and at n
ordinary time we could ave killed
all the bear meat we wanted. 1t was
now, however, too late for the bears,
as they were all holed up in the noun
tains. We had no hope of getting a
bear, though we could see where they
had been scratching in the soft in
about the hot springs. Ny
said that bears have rheu-
the same a q human beings. and
they came there to get hot baths.
/ do not know about that; but IL has
really nothing to do with this story.
which is confined to conditions and not
to theories.
One morning we were out trying to
find a little browse to keep our horses
alive. when we saw in the distance the
of some TRANCE animal which
VI big as a horse through the
curling mists of morning in the