A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dangerous beast; yet even under
such conditions different grislies act in directly opposite ways. Some
she-grislies, when their cubs are young, but are able to follow them
about, seem always worked up to the highest pitch of anxious and jealous
rage, so that they are likely to attack unprovoked any intruder or even
passer-by. Others when threatened by the hunter leave their cubs to
their fate without a visible qualm of any kind, and seem to think only
of their own safety.

In 1882 Mr. Casper W. Whitney, now of New York, met with a very singular
adventure with a she-bear and cub. He was in Harvard when I was, but
left it and, like a good many other Harvard men of that time, took to
cow-punching in the West. He went on a ranch in Rio Arriba County, New
Mexico, and was a keen hunter, especially fond of the chase of cougar,
bear, and elk. One day while riding a stony mountain trail he saw a
grisly cub watching him from the chaparral above, and he dismounted to
try to capture it; his rifle was a 40-90 Sharp's. Just as he neared the
cub, he heard a growl and caught a glimpse of the old she, and he at
once turned up-hill, and stood under some tall, quaking aspens. From
this spot he fired at and wounded the she, then seventy yards off; and
she charged furiously. He hit her again, but as she kept coming like a
thunderbolt he climbed hastily up the aspen, dragging his gun with
him, as it had a strap. When the bear reached the foot of the aspen she
reared, and bit and clawed the slender trunk, shaking it for a moment,
and he shot her through the eye. Off she sprang for a few yards, and
then spun round a dozen times, as if dazed or partially stunned; for the
bullet had not touched the brain. Then the vindictive and resolute
beast came back to the tree and again reared up against it; this time
to receive a bullet that dropped her lifeless. Mr. Whitney then climbed
down and walked to where the cub had been sitting as a looker-on.