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THE BIOGRAPHY OF A GRIZZLY

and

75 Drawings

by

ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON


Author of:
The Trail of the Sandhill Stag
Wild Animals I Have Known
Art Anatomy of Animals
Mammals of Manitoba
Birds of Manitoba


1899


This Book is dedicated to the memory of the days spent at the
Palette Ranch on the Graybull, where from hunter, miner, ... More

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A GRIZZLY

and

75 Drawings

by

ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON


Author of:
The Trail of the Sandhill Stag
Wild Animals I Have Known
Art Anatomy of Animals
Mammals of Manitoba
Birds of Manitoba


1899


This Book is dedicated to the memory of the days spent at the
Palette Ranch on the Graybull, where from hunter, miner, personal
experience, and the host himself, I gathered many chapters of the
History of Wahb.

[Illustration: ] In this Book the designs for title-page, cover, and
general makeup, were done by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson.

[Illustration: ] List of Full-Page Drawings

They all Rushed Under it like a Lot of Little Pigs

Like Children Playing 'Hands'

He Stayed in the Tree till near Morning

A Savage Bobcat ... Warned Him to go Back

Wahb Yelled and Jerked Back

He Struck one Fearful, Crushing Blow

Ain't He an Awful Size, Though?

Wahb Smashed His Skull

Causing the Pool to Overflow

He Deliberately Stood up on the Pine Root

The Roachback Fled into the Woods

He Paused a Moment at the Gate




PART I

THE CUBHOOD OF WAHB

[Illustration:]


I.

He was born over a score of years ago, away up in the wildest part of
the wild West, on the head of the Little Piney, above where the Palette
Ranch is now.

His Mother was just an ordinary Silvertip, living the quiet life that
all Bears prefer, minding her own business and doing her duty by her
family, asking no favors of any one excepting to let her alone. It was
July before she took her remarkable family down the Little Piney to the
Graybull, and showed them what strawberries were, and where to find
them.

Notwithstanding their Mother's deep conviction, the cubs were not
remarkably big or bright; yet they were a remarkable family, for there
were four of them, and it is not often a Grizzly Mother can boast of
more than two.

[Illustration]

The woolly-coated little creatures were having a fine time, and reveled
in the lovely mountain summer and the abundance of good things. Their
Mother turned over each log and flat stone they came to, and the moment
it was lifted they all rushed under it like a lot of little pigs to lick
up the ants and grubs there hidden.

It never once occurred to them that Mammy's strength might fail
sometime, and let the great rock drop just as they got under it; nor
would any one have thought so that might have chanced to see that huge
arm and that shoulder sliding about under the great yellow robe she
wore. No, no; that arm could never fail. The little ones were quite
right. So they hustled and tumbled one another at each fresh log in
their haste to be first, and squealed little squeals, and growled little
growls, as if each was a pig, a pup, and a kitten all rolled into one.

They were well acquainted with the common little brown ants that harbor
under logs in the uplands, but now they came for the first time on one
of the hills of the great, fat, luscious Wood-ant, and they all crowded
around to lick up those that ran out. But they soon found that they were
licking up more cactus-prickles and sand than ants, till their Mother
said in Grizzly, "Let me show you how."

She knocked off the top of the hill, then laid her great paw flat on it
for a few moments, and as the angry ants swarmed on to it she licked
them up with one lick, and got a good rich mouthful to crunch, without a
grain of sand or a cactus-stinger in it. The cubs soon learned. Each
put up both his little brown paws, so that there was a ring of paws all
around the ant-hill, and there they sat, like children playing 'hands,'
and each licked first the right and then the left paw, or one cuffed his
brother's ears for licking a paw that was not his own, till the ant-hill
was cleared out and they were ready for a change.

Ants are sour food and made the Bears thirsty, so the old one led down
to the river. After they had drunk as much as they wanted, and dabbled
their feet, they walked down the bank to a pool,

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