Page:A La California.djvu/76

58 near the house, when he saw something stir in the bushes and gave it a poke with the hoe. A moment later the ladies saw him vault over the fence into the door-yard, with a grizzly at his heels. He managed to escape, but left a portion of his pantaloons behind as a keepsake. That night the family slept n the second story of the house with the windows fastened down.

Almost every schoolboy in America is familiar with stories of the savage ferocity and immense strength of the grizzly bear of California. As a rule as I think I may have intimated elsewhere, hunters stories may safely be taken with some grains of allowance. The lion has generally been represented as the "King of Beasts," and numberless are the stories of his courage, strength, and ferocity. The truth is, the lion is nothing but a great overgrown cat, and his courage is just that of the cat on a large scale, and nothing more. A cat will fight when cornered, from sheer excess of cowardice, but she always prefers running. Find the weight of a cat and that of a lion, and just so many times as the lion is heavier than the cat, just so much more fight and courage of the same character exactly you will find in him. But the stories of the dangerous character of the grizzly, unlike those relating to the lion, are not and cannot be exaggerated. I know from observation that the oldest hunters are the most afraid of a contest with the grizzly, and take the greatest pains to avoid one. It is always the young, inexperienced hunter who sallies out half armed and alone to fight a grizzly; and one dose