failure in man or weapon than to the prowess of the bear. A good hunter
whom I once knew, at a time when he was living in Butte, received fatal
injuries from a bear he attacked in open woodland. The beast charged
after the first shot, but slackened its pace on coming almost up to the
man. The latter's gun jambed, and as he was endeavoring to work it he
kept stepping slowly back, facing the bear which followed a few yards
distant, snarling and threatening. Unfortunately while thus walking
backwards the man struck a dead log and fell over it, whereupon the
beast instantly sprang on him and mortally wounded him before help
arrived.

On rare occasions men who are not at the time hunting it fall victims to
the grisly. This is usually because they stumble on it unawares and the
animal attacks them more in fear than in anger. One such case, resulting
fatally, occurred near my own ranch. The man walked almost over a bear
while crossing a little point of brush, in a bend of the river, and was
brained with a single blow of the paw. In another instance which came
to my knowledge the man escaped with a shaking up, and without even a
fight. His name was Perkins, and he was out gathering huckleberries in
the woods on a mountain side near Pend'Oreille Lake. Suddenly he was
sent flying head over heels, by a blow which completely knocked the
breath out of his body; and so instantaneous was the whole affair that
all he could ever recollect about it was getting a vague glimpse of the
bear just as he was bowled over. When he came to he found himself lying
some distance down the hill-side, much shaken, and without his berry
pail, which had rolled a hundred yards below him, but not otherwise the
worse for his misadventure; while the footprints showed that the bear,
after delivering the single hurried stoke at the unwitting disturber of
its day-dreams, had run off up-hill as fast as it was able.