“At daybreak next morning I repaired on horseback to the scene of my conflict with the bear, and found, to my great delight, on my arrival at the spot, that neither the skin nor the carcass of the bear had been touched by the wolves. This fact confirmed to me the testimony of the hunters and trappers of these parts, as to the great awe in which the grisly bear is held by the wolves and lesser animals of prey. If a bear kills an animal, or finds a dead carcass on the prairie, he appropriates it; and though many a hungry prowler passing by may look wistfully at the choice morsel, it is like the eastern monarch’s share,’taboo’; and even when the mountain monarch is absent, the print of his paw is a seal sufficient for its security. It cost me considerable exertion to place the reeking hide on my saddle; but I succeeded at last, and climbing on the top of it, lighted my pipe and rode back into camp. Riding along, towards noon we descried another bear, a lean, hungry-looking monster, prowling about searching for pommes blanches, and, to judge from his appearance, likely to afford us a pretty severe fight. In approaching him, we did not take any precaution to avoid giving him our wind, concluding, from my former experience, that he would not decline the combat; but in this instance I was mistaken, for rushing away down a ravine, he was soon lost to our view. This result, although it disappointed me at the time, yet gave me a further insight into the disposition and habits of the animal, and agreed with the accounts I had heard from many hunters and trappers with whom I had previously conversed on the subject; namely, that a grisly bear will, in most instances, run away from a man on getting his wind, unless previously wounded, or under such circumstances as to make him think that he cannot escape. Old Mr. Kipp, of Fort Union, told me that once, when on one of his numerous journeys from the States, he was in the Indian country, and had gone out of camp with his double-barrelled gun to look for ducks; he was seen from a distance by a grisly bear, who came cantering towards him. The day was fine, and the old gentleman did not know which way the wind blew, but had sufficient presence of mind to pluck off some of the woolly material of which his blue blanket capote was composed, and throw it into the air; and marking the direction of the current ran a little distance round, till he got full in the line of it, and then stood bolt upright facing Bruin, who rose on his hind-legs for a moment, surveying the tough old man, and then shuffled off, shaking his head as if he considered him meat rather too savoury for his palate.”
There were other adventures with grizzly bears and Palliser recounts a story told by Boucharville about a bear which sprang upon the leading bull of a herd of buffalo and killed it. Other accounts have been given of such battles where the bull killed the bear.
The time for Palliser’s return was now at hand, and loading his skins into boats made of buffalo-hide he floated down the river to the Minitarée post, where James Dawson the old fur trader was now in charge. A little later, boarding the Fur Company’s steamer “Martha,” he took his way with all his trophies down the river and at last reached St. Louis, and his prairie hunt was over.
The publication of his book, The Solitary Hunter, had unexpected results. Some time after its appearance, the British Colonial Office chose Palliser to command an expedition to explore British North America and to topographically determine the boundary line between the British possessions and the United States, from Lake Superior west to the Cascade Range. This expedition was in the field for three years or more. Papers reporting its progress were published by Parliament in 1859, and finally, about 1863, the British Government published Palliser’s detailed journal, containing reports on the geography, agricultural resources, and commercial possibilities of far western America. Later Palliser was a magistrate for County Waterford and, for a time, served as high sheriff of that county.
THE COUNCIL AT FORT BENTON
William T. Hamilton, who died in 1908, was perhaps the very last survivor of that old-time race of trappers whose courage, skill, and endurance led to the discovery, exploration, and settlement of that vast territory which we now call the Empire of the West. He left St. Louis in 1842 with a company of free trappers led by Bill Williams—famous in those days—and for many years thereafter led the wild, adventurous, and independent life of the mountain man. With the coming of the railroads and the settlement of the country that life ended, but in 1907, at the age of eighty-five, he still lived among the mountains of Montana, and still made his annual trapping trips, keeping up the habits that he had practised for sixty-five years.
“Uncle” Bill Hamilton, as he was long and affectionately known, was one of Montana’s first citizens, and the residents of that State were proud of his long experience, his wide knowledge of the life of the early days, and his extraordinary skill as a sign talker. A good mountain man is, of course, a keen observer, but Hamilton possessed also a retentive memory which enabled him in his later years to make valuable contributions to the history of the early West, which have been recorded in the proceedings of the Montana Historical Society, in his book My Sixty Years on the Plains, published in 1905, and in the present account, which was published in Forest and Stream in the spring of 1907.
It was in the year 1855 that Governor I. I. Stephens, called by the Indians “The Short Man,” made, at the mouth of the Judith River, the first treaty with the Indians of northern Montana. The object of this treaty was to bring about a general peace among the different tribes, which had long been at war with one another. Like many efforts of this kind, the treaty had no lasting effect.