powder, an' bullets runs as light an' little as sixty-four to the
pound, why son! you-all could shoot up a grizzly till sundown an'
hardly gain his disdain. It's a fluke if you downs one. That sport
who can show a set of grizzly b'ar claws, them times, has fame.
They're as good as a bank account, them claws be, an' entitles said
party to credit in dance hall, bar room an' store, by merely
slammin' 'em on the counter. "At that time the grizzly b'ar has
courage. Whyever does he have it, you asks? Because you couldn't
stop him; he's out of hoomanity's reach--a sort o' Alexander Selkirk
of a b'ar, an' you couldn't win from him. In them epocks, the
grizzly b'ar treats a gent contemptuous. He swats him, or he claws
him, or he hugs him, or he crunches him, or he quits him accordin'
to his moods, or the number of them engagements which is pressin' on
him at the time. An' the last thing he considers is the feelin's of
that partic'lar party he's dallyin' with. Now, however, all is
changed. Thar's rifles, burnin' four inches of this yere fulminatin'
powder, that can chuck a bullet through a foot of green oak. Wisely
directed, they lets sunshine through a grizzly b'ar like he's a pane
of glass. An', son, them b'ars is plumb onto the play.

"What's the finish? To-day you can't get clost enough to a grizzly
to hand him a ripe peach. Let him glimpse or smell a white man, an'
he goes scatterin' off across hill an' canyon like a quart of licker
among forty men. They're shore apprehensife of them big bullets an'
hard-hittin' guns, them b'ars is; an' they wouldn't listen to you,
even if you talks nothin' but bee-tree an' gives a bond to keep the
peace besides. Yes, sir; the day when the grizzly b'ar will stand
without hitchin' has deeparted the calendar a whole lot. They no
longer attempts insolent an' coarse familiar'ties with folks.
Instead of regyardin' a rifle as a rotton cornstalk in disguise,