Grilse

“ Hare's ear body, ribbed with silver twist, a greyish dark hackle, the colour of the dark fur on the ear, mallard wings, and tail of the same. Make another fly mixed with orange and yellow mohair.
A black fly ribbed with silver tinsel, black wing with white tips, black hackle, and a yellow head and tail. Hook C.
It would be as well to try very small gaudy flies occasionally, as you may rise a grilse during the time you are fishing for white-trout. A grilse loves to rise at a middling gaudy fly after leaving the sea. Blue, green, and red flies are all good. ”

“ A seed will not grow, nor will a parr ever become a grilse, unless under given conditions: it is therefore an easy matter to explain the anomaly of a parr passing seaward becoming a four-pound grilse, while its twin-brother remaining in the breeding-pond is conditionally developed as only a half-ounce samlet, yet none the less a dwarfed grilse—the possibility of growth existing all the while, although it was not actively evoked by physical surroundings. ”

“ The fish, being in the net and landed, is handled by myself only; the eager, sportsmanlike instinct of your man will have to be repressed, his first idea being to seize it and knock it on the head with a stone. I have sufficient respect for either salmon or grilse to finish them with the orthodox priest, and that also is a function I like to perform myself. Then comes the extraction of the hook, always an interesting, because instructive, formula for the angler. ”

“ Grislies are fond of fish; and on the Pacific slope, where the salmon run, they, like so many other beasts, travel many scores of miles and crowd down to the rivers to gorge themselves upon the fish which are thrown up on the banks. Wading into the water a bear will knock out the salmon right and left when they are running thick.
Flesh and fish do not constitute the grisly's ordinary diet. At most times the big bear is a grubber in the ground, an eater of insects, roots, nuts, and berries. ”

“ Whirling, the grizzly caught a hound with a wide sweeping cuff that sent the brute, its ribs caved in and its back broken, hurtling twenty feet. Then the human brute went mad. A foaming rage flecked the lips that parted with a wild inarticulate cry, as it sprang in, swung the club mightily in both hands, and brought it down full on the head of the uprearing grizzly. Not even the skull of a grizzly could withstand the crushing force of such a blow, and the animal went down to meet the worrying of the hounds. ”

“ One day at dinner, Grisell had with careful cunning succeeded in smuggling an entire sheep's head off the dish on to her own lap, thence presently to be borne surreptitiously from the room, when her young brother, with the maddening candour and persistency of childhood, called the company's attention to his sister's prodigious appetite, which not only enabled her to gobble up in next to no time so much good meat, but even rendered her able to make the very bones vanish. ”

“ I have a number of times seen elk, deer, and mountain sheep feed [Pg 198] ing near a grizzly without showing the slightest concern.
The grizzly is an omnivorous feeder. He will eat anything that is edible,—fresh meat or carrion, bark, grass, grasshoppers, ants, fruit, grubs, and leaves. He is fond of honey and with it will consume rotten wood, trash, and bees,—stings and all. He is a destroyer of many pests that afflict man, and in the realm of economic biology should be rated high for work in this connection. I doubt whether any dozen cats, hawks, or owls annually catch as many mice as he. ”

“ Many a time I have seen the fresh tracks of a mother and her cubs on the muddy shore of a beaver pond, and sometimes the tracks of both black bears and grizzlies.
In the course of miles of daily wandering the grizzly may occasionally come upon a wounded animal or a carcass. If his find be large, he may lie close until it is consumed; or he may make a cache of it, returning again and again until it is eaten. Grizzlies will bury an elk in the earth or cover the carcass of a cow with numbers of logs. ”

“ I must feed him up more."
So she gave him more and more food, and every day he put out the stick till at last one day he got careless, and when she took the stick it fell out of his hand, and she felt what it was. So she flew into a terrible rage and called out,
"Grizzle, Grizzle, make the oven hot. This lad is fat enough for Christmas."
Poor Grizzle did not know what to do, but she had to obey the witch. So she piled the wood on under the oven and set it alight. ”

“ Judging from the signs, the crafty old grisly, as cunning as he was ferocious, usually lay in wait for the cattle when they came down to water, choosing some thicket of dense underbrush and twisted cottonwoods, through which they had to pass before reaching the sand banks on the river's brink. ”

“ One day in North Park, Colorado, I came upon the carcass of a cow that wolves had recently killed. It lay in a grassy opening surrounded by willow clumps. Knowing that bears were about, I climbed into the substantial top of a stocky pine near by, hoping that one would come to feast. A grizzly came at sundown.
When about one hundred feet from the carcass [Pg 8] the bear stopped. Standing erect, with fore paws hanging loosely, he looked, listened, and carefully examined the air with his nose. The grizzly is eternally vigilant; he appears to feel that he is ever pursued. ”

“ And he has one general rule, which is an endless puzzle to the hunter: 'Whatever you decide to do, do it quickly and follow it right up.' So when a trapper and a Roachback meet, the Bear at once makes up his mind to run away as hard as he can, or to rush at the man and fight to a finish.
The Grizzlies of the Bad Lands did not do this: they used to stand on their dignity and growl like a thunder-storm, and so gave the hunters a chance to play their deadly lightning; and lightning is worse than thunder any day. ”

“ The killing of wild life is not in my line. I am not a hunter. But in the hunting-industry the grizzly heads the list. The hunter will pay more for a shot at a grizzly than for a shot at any other, and often all other, big game. Hunters frequently spend from one thousand to many thousands of dollars in going after the grizzly. They will work harder and longer for a grizzly than for any other animal. ”

“ The boat had not gone far when the little trout began snapping at that portion of the grizzly's body which protruded through the hole. At the first snap the grizzly gave a start, and half rose from her place, so that the water rushed in. "Sit down, and don't move again, I beseech you," cried Ground-hog, "you'll drown us both if you are not more careful. Is a flea-bite enough to make you risk our lives?" The grizzly had scarcely settled herself in the hole a second time, when the bigger trout made a dash at her, biting big pieces out of her. ”

“ In another corner, a heap of commissariat stuff, tins of bully beef, rabbit, sardines, herring, and glasses of jam, and marmalade. On the center table, a large jug of marmalade, ants busy in the yellow trickle at the rim. Filth had worked its way into the red table-cover. Filth was on every object in the room, like a soft mist, blurring the color and outlines of things. In the corners, under books and tins, insects moved, long, thin, crawling. A hot noon sun came dimly through the dirty glass of the closed window, and slowly baked a sleeping man in the large plush armchair. ”

“ The life-story of every bear is a story of adventure. A hunter with whom I was camping in the No-Summer Mountains of Colorado came in one June evening with the report that he had killed a mother grizzly. He had searched for her cubs, which he thought must be near by, but had failed to discover them. The hunter said he had come upon her unexpectedly in a thicket and she had at once charged, probably thinking herself cornered. One well-aimed shot in the head had dropped her. ”

“ The Lesson of the Polar and Grizzly. The polar bears of the north, and the Rocky Mountain grizzlies, a hundred years ago were bold and aggressive. That was in the days of the weak, small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles, black powder and slow firing. Today all that is changed. All those bears have recognized the fearful deadliness of the long-range, high-power repeating rifle, and the polar and the grizzly flee from man at the first sight of him, fast and far. No grizzly attacks a man unless it has been attacked, or wounded, or cornered, or thinks it is cornered. ”

“ Raging with fury, she rushed about in search of the other children, realising that she had been outwitted by the son of the murdered black bear. Presently discovering their trail, she hastened after them, vowing vengeance as she went.
In the meantime, the three boys had been making the best of their way through the forest. Presently the youngest [6] said to his brothers: "The old grizzly will be after us, and must soon overtake us. Now, if you will do as I tell you, all will be well. I want you to be quick and find me some wasps, some ants, and some dry wood-dust." ”

“ Miners came in pairs and wandered through the peaks, rooting up the ground and spoiling the little streams—grizzly old men mostly, that had lived their lives in the mountain and were themselves slowly turning into Grizzly Bears; digging and grubbing everywhere, not for good, wholesome roots, but [Pg 91] for that shiny yellow sand that they could not eat; living the lives of Grizzlies, asking nothing but to be let alone to dig.
They seemed to understand Grizzly Wahb. The first time they met, Wahb reared up on his hind legs, and the wicked green lightnings began to twinkle in his small eyes. ”

“ For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn range we did not come across any grizzly. There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods, and we encountered a number of bands of cow and calf elk, or of young bulls; but after several days’ hunting, we were still without any game worth taking home, and we had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the game we were especially anxious to kill, for neither Merrifield nor I had ever seen a bear alive.
Sometimes we hunted in company; sometimes each of us went out alone. ”

“ I have already told you that the Grakles are at least as fond of corn as the lords of the land are. Hark to the sound of rattles, and the hallooing of the farmer's sons and servants, as they spread over the field! Now and then the report of a gun comes on the ear. The Grakles have scarcely a single moment of quiet; they are chased, stolen upon, and killed in great numbers, all the country round; but the hungry birds heed not the slaughter of their brethren. They fly in flocks from place to place, and, in spite of all that the farmer has done or threatens to do, continue their depredations. ”

“ But inside the farm-house all was warm and pleasant; the great logs snapped and crackled and roared in the wide chimney-place, throwing red light up and down the walls, so that the dark night only looked in through the latticed windows. Farmer Griggs sat warming his knees at the blaze, smoking his pipe in great comfort, while his crock of ale, with three roasted crab-apples bobbing about within it, warmed in the hot ashes beside the blazing logs, simmering pleasantly in the ruddy heat.
"Farmer Georgie Griggs"
Dame Griggs's spinning-wheel went humm-m-m! ”

“ CHAPTER XIV. In passing the grove mentioned in the last chapter, by the edge of a fosse, or ditch, overgrown with bushes, and not far from some miserable huts, I thought I heard a rustling, and reining up my tangan and listening, I could distinguish the deep bass of a grunter, with the running treble of sundry little pigs. My heart went pit-a-pat; here, thought I, is a glorious discovery! I shall be the first to rouse the grizzly monster from his lair, and launch a spear at him. ”

“ Grilly, of course, had not so gay an exterior; yet he had a handsome clothing of soft, fine hair; a gentle, intelligent eye; a head exceedingly well formed, round and full, with prominent forehead; handsome moustache and full stylish whiskers; an expression winning and full of animation; a carriage elegant and graceful; and, withal, he was astonishingly expert with tail and hands and feet. ”

“ I once witnessed a grizzly-roping in Montana that had rare fighting and adventure in it. Two cowboys pursued a grizzly nearly to camp, when several others came riding out with whirling ropes seeking fun. They roped the bear; but a horse was pulled off his feet and dragged, a cowboy was ditched into a bunch of cactus, another cowboy lost his saddle, the cinches giving way under the strain, and a horse struck in the flank had to be shot. Meantime the bear got away and stampeded the entire herd of cattle.
Bear stories have a fascination all their own. ”

“ The great Blemish, sleek and shining; the small Grif, rough and muddy: the great Blemish clean and polished, smooth-shaved and glossy; the small Grif, dirty and ragged, with the incipient stubble of manhood upon his chin and cheeks. For nature is impartial in her supply of beard and whiskers. Money will not buy them, nor will grease produce them, though it be puffed and perfumed. ”

“ And after a while the old witch said to her,
"Grizzle, Grizzle, is the oven hot?"
And Grizzle said, "I don't know, mum."
And when the witch asked her again whether it was hot enough, Grizzle said,
"I do not know how hot an oven ought to be."
"Get away, get away," said the old witch; "I know, let me see." And she poked her old head into the oven. Then Grizzle pushed her right into the oven and closed the door and rushed out into the back yard and let Johnnie out of the cubby-hole. ”

“ The old bear and cubs, forgetting all possible danger, while he was thus performing stood up to watch the entire exhibition.
A grizzly keeps an eye on near-by animals, often without appearing to do so. But if the animal is doing something new or unusual he gives it his entire attention. Two bears, side by side, are interested in the same thing; yet the individuality of each will show if you watch them a minute. Of course, all bears are not equally curious about the same thing, but seldom do I recall outwitting a bear even when appealing to his curiosity, and never could I class him as stupid. ”