Few persons believe that a grizzly will attack a man before he is himself attacked. I was one of these doubting Thomases until a few years ago, when I was thoroughly convinced by ocular demonstration that some grizzlies, at least, will attempt to make a meal off a man even though he may not have harmed them previously. We were hunting in the Shoshone Mountains in Northern Wyoming. I had killed a large elk in the morning, and on going back to the carcass in the afternoon to skin it we saw that Bruin had been there ahead us, but had fled on our approach. Without the least apprehension of his return, we leaned our rifles against a tree about fifty feet away, and commenced work. There were three of us, but only two rifles, Mr. Huffman, the photographer, having left his in camp. He had finished taking views of the carcass, and we were all busily engaged skinning, when, hearing a crashing in the brush and a series of savage roars and growls, we looked up the hill, and were horrified to see three grizzly bears, an old female and two cubs about two-thirds grown, charging upon us with all the savage fury of a pack of starving wolves upon a sheepfold.
To make a long story short, we killed the old female and one cub; the other escaped into the jungle before we could get a shot at him. The resolute front we put on alone saved our lives.
In another instance, when hunting deer in Idaho, I came suddenly upon a female grizzly and two cubs, when the mother bear charged me savagely and would have killed me had I not fortunately controlled my nerves long enough to put a couple of bullets through her and stop her before she got to me.
I have heard of several other instances of grizzlies making unprovoked attacks on men, which were so well substantiated that I could not question the truth of the reports.
The grizzly is partially nocturnal in his habits, and apparently divides his labor of obtaining food and his traveling about equally between day and night. It is not definitely known to what age he lives in his wild state, but he is supposed to attain to twenty-five or thirty years. Several have lived in domestication to nearly that age, and one died in Union Park, Chicago, a few years ago, that was known to be eighteen years old.