Bears were all over the place that year.  They blundered into the roads at night and scared teams, broke into the cabin in Mariposa Grove and ate up all the grub and a sack of sugar pine seed worth a dollar a pound, and Captain Wood and I never got a shot in three weeks’ of diligent hunting.  The only man who had any luck was Lieutenant Davis; that is, not counting Private McNamara, who had bigger luck than a man who wounds a big Grizzly and runs really has coming to him.  McNamara’s luck will be seen later.

Davis killed two bears on the Perigord Meadows and one on Rush Creek, and wounded a large Grizzly in Devil’s Gulch.  It was a lucky shot that he made in the dark on Rush Creek.  A troop horse had died about a quarter of a mile below the cavalry camp, on the edge of the National Park, and the men had seen bear tracks around the carcass.  Davis and an Illinois preacher, who was roughing it for his health with the troopers, took their blankets one night and camped about thirty yards from the dead horse to await the coming of the bear.  The moon was not due to rise until about midnight, and Davis pulled off his boots, rolled up in his blanket and went to sleep.  The preacher was not sleepy, and was not entirely confident that it was bear nature to wait for moonlight before starting out on the prowl.  So he made a small fire and sat beside it, toasting his toes and thinking of things.

Just before midnight Davis awoke, looked at his watch, and said:  “Well, parson, it is about time for the moon to show up, and the bear is likely to come pretty soon.  You’d better put out your fire.”

The preacher shoved some dirt over the embers with his foot, and Davis had just returned his watch to his pocket, when the sound of the crunching of gravel was heard from the bank just above the carcass.  Davis looked up and could just make out a huge dark form on the edge of the bank.  He raised his carbine and fired point blank at the dark mass, and the report was answered by an angry growl.  The bear leaped down the bank toward the hunters, and Davis sprang to his feet, dropping the carbine, and jumped into the creek, revolver in hand, to get into clear fighting ground.  In doing so, he had to jump toward the bear, but he preferred close quarters in the creek bed, where the water was knee deep, to a scrimmage in the brush.

The preacher ran for his carbine, which was leaning against a tree twenty feet distant, but he had no opportunity to use it, for the bear made but one more plunge and fell into the water with the death gurgle in his throat.  When Davis was certain that the bear was done for, he and the preacher ventured to examine the beast.  They found that Davis had made one of the luckiest shots on record, having sent a carbine bullet through the heart of the big cinnamon bear, although he had taken no aim, and, when he fired, could not distinguish the bear’s head from his tail.

They pulled the dead bear out of the water, and by the light of the moon, which had risen over the mountain, the preacher curiously examined the teeth and formidable claws of the first wild bear he had ever seen.  He felt of the animal’s enormous, muscular legs, and was profoundly impressed with the great strength of the brute.