bivouac, undeterred by the still blazing fire, and tried to reach a
haunch of venison hung upon a limb directly over one of the party. The
man--Saml Snedden, the first settler in Lockwood Valley, Cal.--awoke
and saw the great beast towering over him and stretching up in a vain
effort to reach the venison, and he greatly feared that in coming down
to all fours again the bear might forget his presence and step upon
him. Snedden tried furtively to draw his rifle out from the blankets
in which he had enveloped it, but found that he could not get the
weapon, without attracting the bear's attention and probably provoking
immediate attack. So he abandoned the attempt, kept perfectly still
and watched the bear with half-closed eyes. The Grizzly realized that
the meat was beyond his reach, and with a sighing grunt came down to
all fours, stepping upon and crushing flat a tin cup filled with water
within a foot of the man's head. The bear inquisitively turned the
crushed cup over, smelt of it, sniffed at Snedden's ear and slouched
slowly away into the darkness as noiselessly as a phantom, and only one
man in the camp knew he had been there except by the sign of his
footprints and the flattened cup.

Many hunters have told me of similar experiences, and never have I
heard of one instance of unprovoked attack upon a sleeping person by a
bear, or for that matter by any other of the large carnivorae of this
country. Only one authentic instance of a bear feeding on human flesh
have I known, and that was under unusual circumstances.

Two things will be noted by the reader of these accounts of California
bear fights: First, that the Grizzly's point of attack is usually the
face or head, and second, that, except in the case of she-bears
protecting or avenging their cubs, the Grizzly ceased his attack when
satisfied that his enemy was no longer capable of continuing the fight,