“As I was saying, Taylor recognized the tracks and was sure he had got old Whitehead, but he was sort of puzzled when he noticed a hog’s track in the same trail and saw that those were sometimes wiped out by the bear’s tracks.  When he got near the spring gun he saw bits of meat hanging in the brush, but no fur anywhere.  He kept on, and pretty soon he saw a dark mass lying on the ground in front of the wreck of the old musket.  He stepped up to look at it and saw that it was the mangled corpse of the biggest hog on the ranch.  One of the hams was gone, and apparently it had been cut away with a knife.  The head and all the fore part of the hog had been blown to flinders, and the brush was just festooned with pork.

“Taylor thought somebody had happened along and cut a ham out of the dead hog, but there were no man tracks anywhere; nothing but hog and bear tracks.  It was plain that the cunning old bear had driven the hog ahead of him up the trail to spring the gun, but that missing ham could not be accounted for.

“Another curious thing was noticed about all the cattle that the Grizzly killed.  Ordinarily, you know, the Grizzly strikes a blow that breaks a steer’s neck or shoulder, and then pulls him down and finishes him.  In the Piru country a great many cattle were found with their throats neatly cut, and old Whitehead’s tracks were invariably found near the carcasses.  The only man that the Grizzly ever killed, so far as is known, was a Mexican sheepherder, and he was found with a slash in the side of the head that looked like the work of a hatchet or other sharp tool.  Some people didn’t believe that the Mexican was killed by a bear, but there were no other tracks where his body was found, and I know for a fact that old Whitehead did kill him.

“I was pirooting around in the brush on a hill pretty well up toward the head of Piru Creek one afternoon, when I caught sight of a bear about twenty yards ahead of me.  I could see only a part of his fur, and couldn’t tell how he was lying or what part of him was in sight.  I figured around a few minutes, but couldn’t get a better sight, and so I just took chances and let drive for luck at what I could see.  It was a fool thing to do, of course, but I just happened to feel careless and confident.  There was a snort and a crash, and old Whitehead loomed up madder than a hornet.  I had shot him in the haunch and he felt insulted.  He made a rush at me, and I skipped aside and jumped for a small tree standing on the brink of a little ravine.  My rifle dropped into the ravine, and I went up the tree like a monkey up a pole, and by the time the old bear had put his helm down and swung around to take a whack at me I was out of his reach and felt safe.