Bear stories have a fascination all their own. Here is one of five men who were hunting in northwestern Montana, a section of high and rugged mountain-peaks, snow-fields, and glaciers, well-nigh inaccessible, and wholly uninhabited save by wild animals. Two of the men went off to a distant glacier-basin for big game, separating and going on opposite sides of a ridge. One of them after a steep climb came upon a grizzly cub, so large as to appear full-grown except to the most careful observer. He killed the bear with three cartridges from his Mauser rifle, and then, leaning the rifle against a rock, stooped over to examine his prize. Suddenly he heard a fearsome cry and a swift rush. Turning, he saw the mother bear coming for him and not more than sixty feet away.
Springing to his rifle, he put two steel-clad bullets into the grizzly, emptying his gun. With remarkable coolness he slipped in another cartridge and sent a third bullet into her. But Mauser bullets are small and an enraged grizzly is a hard thing to stop. The three bullets did not stop this mother bear, frantic at the sight of her dead cub. With one stroke of her paw she knocked the hunter into a gulch, eight feet below. Then she sprang down after him, caught him in her mouth, shook him as a dog might shake a doll, and dropped him. She caught him up again, his face between her tusks, shook him, and again dropped him. A third time she snatched him up. But now the little Mauser bullets had done their work, and she fell dead across the hunter’s feet.
It was high time, for the man was in little better condition than the bear. His scalp and cheek and throat were torn open, there were five gaping wounds in his chest, his thigh bore an irregular tear two or three inches wide from which the flesh hung in ragged strips, and his left wrist was broken and the bones protruding through the twisted flesh. His companion, alarmed by the six shots, hurried to the hunter. He bound up his wounds, set him on a horse, guided him for two hours across country without a trail, and got him to camp at nightfall. But to save the man’s life it was necessary to get him to the railroad in short order. He was put on a horse with a man on each side to support him, and for eleven hours the party climbed down the five miles through forest and jungle, cutting their way as they went. At dark, completely exhausted, they flagged a limited train. The hunter was hurried to a hospital and operated upon and his life saved.
The man with a gun is a specialist. He is looking for a particular thing in order to kill it. Generally the gun hampers full enjoyment of the wilderness. The hunter misses most of the beauty and the glory of the trail. If he stops to enjoy the pranks of other animals, or to notice the color of cloud or flower, he will miss his opportunity to secure his game. When at last he is within range of a bear, it may scent him and be off at any minute, so he must shoot at once. He learns but little of the character of the animal.
Trailing the grizzly without a gun is the very acme of hunting. The gunless hunter comes up close, but he lingers to watch the bear and perhaps her cubs. He sees them play. Often, too, he has the experience of seeing wilderness etiquette when other bears or animals come into the scene. The information that he gathers and his enjoyment excel those obtained by the man with a gun.
Roosevelt has said and shown that the hunter whose chief interest is in shooting has but little out of the hunt. Audubon did a little shooting for specimens. Wright had as many thrills with the camera as with the rifle. Adams was far happier and more useful with his live grizzlies than he was killing other grizzlies. Emerson McMillin was satisfied to hunt without either gun or camera. The words and sketches of Ernest Thompson Seton have given us much of the artistic side of the wilderness. Dr. Frank M. Chapman explored two continents for the facts of bird-lore and in addition to his books prepared the magnificent bird-groups in the American Museum of Natural History. Thoreau enjoyed life in the wilderness without a gun. But John Muir was the supreme wilderness hunter and wanderer. He never carried a gun. Usually he was in the wilds alone. He spent years in a grizzly bear country. But the wealth of nature-lore with which he en riched his books make him the Shakespeare of nature.
The man without a gun can enjoy every scene of nature along his way. He has time to turn aside for other animals, or to stop and watch any one of the countless unexpected wild-life exhibitions that are ever appearing. Then, too, he hears the many calls and sounds, the music of the wilds. The wild places, especially in grizzly bear land, are crowded with plants and with exhibitions of the manners and the customs of animals, and are rich in real nature stories being lived with all their charm and their dramatic changes.