Grizzlies Feast on Sheep

1905

Early one frosty October morning when the little Nimrod was sitting in a crevice of the mountain's side basking in the sun he espied way down in the valley three grizzlies, says a writer in the Metropolitan. From the former trailing he had done he knew them to be a great male and two females as his mates.

As the boy watched them he says that they went off in different directions, one ascending the face of the opposite mountain, while the other two worked their way around either side of its base before commencing the ascent. As he watched them he noticed that while the bear that was climbing up the mountain's face took things leisurely the other two were going much faster and that they were heading up toward the back of the mountain.

The lad, wondering what the bears were about, began to scan the mountain and discovered a band of big-horn sheep feeding on the mountain's front very near the top. Standing Wolf felt sure that something of interest was about to happen, so he watched the bears and the sheep attentively. After awhile, when the lower bear, the only one now in view, had climbed to a point which revealed him to the sheep, they became restless and began to ascend rapidly. Whenever the bear was seen to quicken his pace the big-horns would at once quicken theirs.

Up, up, up the rugged precipice they scurried and ever faster followed the bear. After an exhausting ascent of the steepest cliff on the mountain's side the band gained the top and for a second rested. Then, as two great forms rushed out among them, confusion seized the herd and they dashed away in all directions, many leaping panic-stricken over the precipice.

A moment later, after having killed the couple they had seized, two grizzly bears that had ascended the back of the mountain waddled forward to the edge of the cliff and, stared down at their accomplice feasting upon sheep that had been mangled upon the crags below.