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LD Ephraim should have stayed in Yellowstone Park where he was well off, but like many humans he became dissatisfied with his lot and sought his fortunes in other regions and so came to grief. In the park he was protected by the government, with plenty of forage on the dumps of the many tourists' hotels, and, if he took a notion, he could kill an elk calf, for elk were very plentiful in the park being protected just as Old Ephraim was. But he failed to appreciate all of his blessings and so came into our story.

Old Ephraim was the facetious name which hunters and frontiersmen in the west had given to the Rocky Mountain grizzly bear. Before the discovery of the great Kodiak bear on Kodiak Island in Alaska it was thought that the Rocky Mountain grizzly was king among carnivorous animals in the western hemisphere, but the discovery of the Kodiak bear took this palm from him.

Old Ephraim at the time of our story was five or six years old and while he was not of record-breaking