The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal. Enos A. Mills

to the edge of a thick willow clump, he flung himself into it with a fearful roar, instantly leaping out on the other side ready to charge anything that might start from the willows; but nothing started. Standing erect, tense in every muscle, he waited a moment in expectant attitude. Then he charged, roaring, through another willow clump, and another, until he had investigated every possible place of concealment near the carcass. Not finding an enemy, he at last went to the carcass.

      When he had feasted for a few minutes he suddenly rose, snarled, and sniffed along my trail for a few yards. He uttered a few growling threats. That a grizzly cannot climb a tree is a fact in natural history which gave me immense satisfaction. But the bear returned to the carcass and finished his feast. Finally, having raked grass and trash over the remains, he doubled back on his trail and faded into the twilight.

      Grizzlies often show courage and strategy by hiding and lying in ambush for a pursuing hunter. On one occasion I had been following a grizzly for a number of days, trying to get his photograph at short range. He knew I was in pursuit. Finally, he doubled back on his trail a short distance and crouched behind a log. His tracks as I followed them passed along the other side of this log, and continued plainly ahead of me across the top of a snow-covered moraine. But as I approached the log, the wind stirred the bear’s fur and gave me warning.

      A grizzly appears to understand that his tracks reveal his movements. I was once following one that had been wounded by a hunter to see where he went and what he did. He circled from his trail and came back to it over logs and rocks, which left no markings, and hid in a clump of fir trees. On seeing this possible place of ambush by the trail, I turned aside and climbed a pine to reconnoitre. When the bear realized that I had discovered him, he made off in anger.

      Round the foot of Long’s Peak I followed a bear through a shallow snow, hoping to overtake and photograph him. Most of the snow had melted off the logs and bowlders. After trailing him four or five miles I came to a bowlder where he had climbed up and looked around. Possibly he wished to see how close I was to him; possibly he was deciding just where he would carry out a plan for outwitting me. At any rate, he jumped from the bowlder, walked round it, traveled a short distance slowly, then set off on a run, going east. After I had followed his trail for more than a mile, his tracks ceased in a rocky, snowless area where his footprints did not show.

      I thought I should find his tracks in the snow on the farther edge of the rocky space; but they were not there. Then, in the snow, I went entirely round the edge of the rocky space without seeing a track. Thinking that possibly the grizzly was hiding in this small rocky area, I at once cautiously circled every place behind which he might be concealed, but without finding him.

      Out in the snow I made a larger circle and at last discovered his tracks. Entering the rocky space, he had turned abruptly to the left and traveled about one hundred feet. Then, from the rocks, he had made a long leap into a clump of bushes, from this leaped into another clump of bushes, and finally into the snow. He thus left the rocky place without leaving any telltale tracks within thirty feet of it.

      He started westward—back toward the bowlder—alongside his first trail, and traveled for about a mile parallel to it and less than one hundred feet from it. Near the bowlder he waited in concealment at a point where he could watch his former trail, and evidently stayed there until I passed.

      Then he traveled on a short distance to another small rocky area. Doubling in his tracks, he came back for one hundred feet or so in the trail he had thus made. Working toward his first trail, he hid his tracks by leaping among fallen timbers and bushes, and at last made a leap into his first trail by the bowlder, where he made many tracks in the snow. Along this old trail he traveled east again a short distance, stepping precisely in his former footprints.

      Out of this trail he leaped upon the top of a low, snowless bowlder on the right, and from this upon another bowlder. He walked along a bare fallen log. Here I must have searched more than two hours before detecting two or three broken sticks, which gave me a clew to the direction he had taken. From the log he walked upon a cross log and then plunged through fifty or sixty feet of thicket which showed no trail. From where he had emerged on the farther side of the thicket there was little by which to trace him for the next quarter of a mile. He zigzagged over fallen logs and leaped upon snowless bowlders until he came to a tree leaning against a cliff. Up this tree he walked to a ledge, where, fortunately, there was a little snow which recorded his track. He followed the ledge to the top of the cliff and, leaving this, ran for four or five miles. It took me twenty-four hours to unravel the various tangles, and I finally gave up the idea of photographing him. Long before I arrived at the top of the cliff I had concluded that I was following a reasoning animal, one who might be more alert than I myself.

      Though a grizzly has both speed and strength, he generally uses his wits and thus obtains the desired end in the easiest way. Three or four persons have told me that they have seen instances of a grizzly bear’s taking the part of an acrobat. The bear, by this means, endeavored to attract the attention of cattle, with the idea of drawing them close and seizing one of them. Among his pranks he turned an occasional somersault, rolled over and over, and chased his tail.

      A Utah grizzly killed about one thousand head of cattle in fifteen years. During this time there was a large reward offered for his death. Numerous attempts were made to capture him. Old hunters and trappers tried with rifles and traps; expeditions of men, horses, and dogs pursued him. All these years he lived on as usual in his home territory, made a kill every few days, and was seen only two or three times.

      Another grizzly, eluding pursuers, slaughtered live stock freely, and managed to survive thirty-five years of concerted efforts to kill or capture him. There was a rich reward on his head.

      There are similar accounts of Clubfoot, Three-Toes, and other outlaw grizzlies. All of these bears slaughtered cattle by the hundreds in their home territory, lived with heavy prices on their heads, and for years outwitted skillful hunters and trappers, escaping the well-organized posse again and again. Knowing many of the hunters and their skillful methods, and the repeated triumphs of other grizzlies over combinations and new contrivances, I am convinced that the grizzly bear is an animal who reasons.

      When in a trap or cornered, a wounded grizzly sometimes feigns death. Apparently he considers his situation desperate and sees in this method the possibility of throwing his assailant off guard. Considering that need of feigning death is recent,—since the arrival of the white man with high-power rifle and insidious steel trap,—this strategy appears like a clear case of reasoning.

      The grizzly is difficult to anticipate. His strategy usually defeats the hunter. One wounded bear may at once charge the hunter; the next may run from him; and the third may hold the ground defiantly. The grizzly meets what to us seem identical situations in unlike manner, and makes sudden changes in his habits without our seeing the cause for such changes. Quickly he makes the acquaintance of the new and promptly adjusts himself to it. If it is dangerous he avoids it, if advantageous he uses it.

      Often in traveling to a distant place the grizzly goes on the run, but just as often he goes at slower speed. If plodding slowly, he conveys the impression of deliberating. He often appears to be thinking, and probably is. Though shuffling along, he is bound for a definite place with the intention of doing a definite thing. Suddenly he changes his mind and goes off in the opposite direction.

      I have seen a bear hustling along, with his mind apparently made up; he is in a hurry to carry out some plan, to reach a given place, or see some particular thing. All at once he notices where he is and stops. He remembers that he intended to look at such and such a thing on the way but has neglected to do so. He hesitates a few moments, then goes back.

      On rare occasions the grizzly walks along, perhaps in bountiful summer, thinking of nothing in particular, with head swinging slowly from side to side. Something arouses him; he may promptly retreat or he may investigate. You never know what a grizzly will do next or how he will do it, but everything he does is with fresh interest and delightful individuality.

      An old grizzly pursued by wolves once gave me a fearful exhibition of nature. He came running across an opening in the southern end of North Park with several wolves close in pursuit. He acted as though away from home—hard