Occasionally the bear, although vicious, is also frightened, and passes on after giving one or two bites; and frequently a man who is knocked down is rescued by his friends before he is killed, the big beast mayhap using his weapons with clumsiness.  So a bear may kill a foe with a single blow of its mighty fore-arm, either crushing in the head or chest by sheer force of sinew, or else tearing open the body with its formidable claws; and so on the other hand he may, and often does, merely disfigure or maim the foe by a hurried stroke.  Hence it is common to see men who have escaped the clutches of a grisly, but only at the cost of features marred beyond recognition, or a body rendered almost helpless for life.  Almost every old resident of western Montana or northern Idaho has known two or three unfortunates who have suffered in this manner.  I have myself met one such man in Helena, and another in Missoula; both were living at least as late as 1889, the date at which I last saw them.  One had been partially scalped by a bear’s teeth; the animal was very old and so the fangs did not enter the skull.  The other had been bitten across the face, and the wounds never entirely healed, so that his disfigured visage was hideous to behold.

Most of these accidents occur in following a wounded or worried bear into thick cover; and under such circumstances an animal apparently hopelessly disabled, or in the death throes, may with a last effort kill one or more of its assailants.  In 1874 my wife’s uncle, Captain Alexander Moore, U. S. A., and my friend Captain Bates, with some men of the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry, were scouting in Wyoming, near the Freezeout Mountains.  One morning they roused a bear in the open prairie and followed it at full speed as it ran towards a small creek.  At one spot in the creek beavers had built a dam, and as usual in such places there was a thick growth of bushes and willow saplings.  Just as the bear reached the edge of this little jungle it was struck by several balls, both of its forelegs being broken.  Nevertheless, it managed to shove itself forward on its hind-legs, and partly rolled, partly pushed itself into the thicket, the bushes though low being so dense that its body was at once completely hidden.  The thicket was a mere patch of brush, not twenty yards across in any direction.  The leading troopers reached the edge almost as the bear tumbled in.  One of them, a tall and powerful man named Miller, instantly dismounted and prepared to force his way in among the dwarfed willows, which were but breast-high.  Among the men who had ridden up were Moore and Bates, and also the two famous scouts, Buffalo Bill—­long a companion of Captain Moore,—­and California Joe, Custer’s faithful follower.  California Joe had spent almost all his life on the plains and in the mountains, as a hunter and Indian fighter; and when he saw the trooper about to rush into the thicket he called out to him not to do so, warning him of the danger.  But the