The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1901-03-21
FEAR MEN.
Tleroest of Them seldom Attack, Save
When Wounded. v

FlerCest of Them seldom Attack, Save
When Wounded. v
OF all questions asked by people who
have never been much out CT doors,
none seems so simple to the old-timers
as that which concerns the dangers to-
which the camper may be exposed from
the attacks of wild beasts, says Forest
and Stream. 1t is chiefly women and
children who ask such questions, but
it is evident that in the brains Of many
inexperienced persons is firmly estab-
lished a belief that wild animals are
dangerous, that wolves, panthers and
bears prowl about seeking whom they
may devour. This belief is in all prob
ability a survival in part Of earlier
days, when the most civilized men
dwelt largely in the East, where might
be encountered lions wE.o would attack
them, or hyenas ready to snap up the
stray child wandering a-7ay from the
camp, or bears Of the type encountered
by the irreverent infants who apostro-
phized Elisha; and also in part of that
time when the weapons Of primitive
man were so feeble and of so little avail
against the wild beasts that these were
Justly to be feared. This feeling al
ready existing is encouraged and
strengthened by a certain amount OF
the writing of the day. The average
man and woman love to read a bear or
panther or wolf story not less than do
small boys and round-eyed children
listen with pleasure to the tales Of
some venerable uncle or grandfather
who relates the story Of the wolves
that used to howl about his cabin or
visit his sheep fold when first he set
tied In the country. In this land Of
America, as many know, there are no
such things as dangerous animals,
though there are creatures which may
be made dangerous. The wolf, the bear
and the cougar are far more anxious to
get away from man than man is to get
away from them. If given the oppor-
tunity they will always slip away and
run, and If they fight it is because they
believe that they have been cut off
from every avenu of escape. Where
an animal has been wounded it is a
different matter. Then, often, consid-
OAoSASh VI pIuuCuC6 are IOTSOCLSQ ana
the animal acts on impulse, instead of
doing what it knows to be wise; but
even so there is much more danger
from a wounded deer than from a
wounded panther, and vastly more
from a wounded moose. But for the
average man who is travelling through
a new country where wild animals may
be plenty, who stops when he has made
a days march and is at home where
night finds him. there is not now, nor
ever was, more danger from the wild
animals of the country than from the
l~ightnings which blaze in the summer
sky. Many more people have been
killed by lightning than nave been run
over by stampeding buffalo herds, or
killed by u~nwounded grizzly bears, or
by all the other animals of the prairie
put together. One might almost say
that more people have been struck by
falling meteorites than have been kill
ed by panthers or wolves. And yet
from day to day the newspapers con-
tinue to print bear stories, catamount
stories and wolf stories, and probably
they will do so until long after the last
bear, catamount and wolf shall have
disappeared from the land.