WILLIAMS, O. W. A privately printed letter of eight unnumbered pages, dated from Fort Stockton, Texas, June 30, 1930, containing the best description of a buffalo stampede that I have encountered. It is reproduced in Dobie's On the Open Range.
28. Bears and Bear Hunters
THE BEAR, whether black or grizzly, is a great American citizen. Think of how many children have been put to sleep with bear stories! Facts about the animal are fascinating; the effect he has had on the minds of human beings associated with him transcends naturalistic facts. The tree on which Daniel Boone carved the naked fact that here he "Killed A. Bar In the YEAR 1760" will never die. Davy Crockett killed 105 bars in one season, and his reputation as a bar hunter, plus ability to tell about his exploits, sent him to Congress. He had no other reason for going. The grizzly was the hero of western tribes of Indians from Alaska on down into the Sierra Madre. Among western white men who met him, occasionally in death, the grizzly inspired a mighty saga, the cantos of which lie dispersed in homely chronicles and unrecorded memories as well as in certain vivid narratives by Ernest Thompson Seton, Hittell's John Capen Adams, John G. Neihardt, and others.
For all that, neither the black bear nor the grizzly has been amply conceived of as an American character. The conception must include a vast amount of folklore. In a chapter on "Bars and Bar Hunters" in On the Open Range and in "Juan Oso" and "Under the Sign of Ursa Major," chapters of Tongues of the Monte, I have indicated the nature of this dispersed epic in folk tales.
In many of the books listed under "Nature; Wild Life; Naturalists" and "Mountain Men" the bear "walks like a man."
ALTER, J. CECIL. James Bridger, Salt Lake City, 1922 reprinted by Long's College Book Co., Columbus, Ohio. Contains several versions of the famous Hugh Glass bear story.
HITTELL, THEODORE H. The Adventures of John Capen Adams, 1860; reprinted 1911, New York. OP. Perhaps no man has lived who knew grizzlies better than Adams. A rare personal narrative.
MILLER, JOAQUIN. True Bear Stories, Chicago, 1900. OP. Truth questionable in places; interest guaranteed.
MILLER, LEWIS B. Saddles and Lariats, Boston, 1909. OP. The chapter "In a Grizzly's Jaws" is a wonderful bear story.