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National Geographic : 1908 Feb
Contents
A BEAR HUNT IN MONTANA BY ARTHUR ALVORD STILES TOPOGRAPHER, U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY W ITH the end of the hunting season in the Far West there comes to light a true and ex citing bear story-one that well might have made the bravest hunter look to his safety, or even have thrilled the sports man spirit of President Roosevelt himself. The incident occurred last September in the forest of northwestern Montana. The party consisted of Dr Charles B. Penrose, a well-known physician of Phil adelphia, the victim of bruin's ferocious attack, and his two brothers, Spencer Penrose, of Colorado Springs, and Sen ator Bois Penrose, of Pennsylvania, now in Washington. The party had spent the early part of the season exploring a sec tion of the Lewis and Clark Forest Re serve, where trails were to be found-and where travel with the pack-horses was comparatively easy. Toward the end of the summer, however, Senator Penrose desired to see a part of the country hith erto unsurveyed and without trails or passways of any kind. It is a section of high and rugged mountain peaks, snow fields, and living glaciers, wholly unin habited except by the wild animals, and wellnigh inaccessible save in the dead of winter, when some adventurous soul of doubtful judgment might make his way thither on snowshoes. As it happened, a small party of topo graphical surveyors of the U. S. Geo logical Survey was then penetrating into this God-forsaken region, carrying with them their pack-train of mules, camp equipment, and map-making instruments. This was the first pack outfit of any kind to enter into the territory. Senator Pen rose and his brothers joine the govern ment party, and by them were conducted well up among the snow-cappe peaks of the range. Continued bad weather having stopped the work of the surveyors and made all mapping impossible, the writer, who was chief of the government party, offered to take Senator Penrose out for a hunt. The Senator and his younger brother, however, were tired out with the long and difficult journey to the government camp, so Dr Penrose, who had endured the hard climb better than his brothers, volun teered to accompany me to a distant gla cier basin, where they expected to find big game. The saddle horses were left at the head of this basin, and, little know ing of the fate that awaited them, the two men separated. I had just sighted a fine buck deer and was on the point of creeping away from it so that Dr Penrose might come and kill it, when I heard three shots in rapid succession. I gave no special heed to the reports, which came from the other side of the ridge, and was about turning to shoot the deer myself, when I heard two more shots; a moment more and another report rang out. Immediately becoming alarmed, I ran back in the direction from whence the shots came. I suppose I reached the doctor in about five or ten minutes. As I came around a mass of broken boulders I saw Dr Penrose wandering aimlessly around in the canyon bed. He had no gun. His hat was gone,. his coat torn off, and his trousers rent. Blood poured from his head and neck, and he gripped his left arm in his crim son right hand. When I reached him he murmured piteously, "Water, water." I ran and brought water in my big som brero from the other side of the rocks. He drank it like a thirsty horse, and I thought I saw part of it run out through a gash in his cheek. Then he said: "Stiles, I am all in; I have had a fight with a bear." With signal cloth I hurriedly began to tie up the worst of his wounds, and as I did so the picture and the bleeding man told me the story. A few rods down the gulch lay a grizzly cub, so large as to ap pear full-grown, except to the careful observer. Near by was the huge carcass
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