One evening when the sun was about an hour high, one of the brothers
took his rifle and went out upon the hills and did not return that
night. The following morning his two brothers set out in search and
soon found him dead, bitten through the spine in the neck, evidently by
a bear. His rifle was unloaded and the tracks showed where he had
fled, pursued by the angry animal, been overtaken, and killed.

On the succeeding day a hunt was organized and some twenty men turned
out to seek revenge. The bears, for there were two of them, were
tracked into a deep rocky canyon running from Forest Hill to Big Bar.
Large rocks were rolled down its sides, and the bears were routed out
and both killed.

In 1851, three men armed with Kentucky rifles, which were not only
muzzle-loaders, but of small calibre and less effective than the
ordinary .32 calibre rifle of to-day, were hunting deer on the divide
between Volcano and Shirttail Canyons in Placer county. In the heavy
timber on the slope they encountered a large Grizzly coming up out of
Volcano Canyon. The bear was a hundred yards distant when they saw him
and evinced no desire for trouble, and two of the hunters were more
than willing to give him the trail and let him go about his business in
peace. The other, a man named Wright, who had killed small bears, but
knew nothing about the Grizzly, insisted on attacking, and prepared to
shoot. The others assured him that a bullet from a Kentucky rifle at
that distance would only provoke the bear to rush them, and begged him
not to fire. But Wright laughed at them and pulled trigger with a bead
on the bear's side, where even a heavy ball would be wasted.

The Grizzly reared upon his haunches, bit at the place where the ball