One of our local historical “legends” was a man named “Bear George” McClellan. He lived not far from my house which means in his written stories, I can recognize many of the places he talks about. I have copies of some of the articles he wrote for popular magazines of his day. Some stories seem to have been bound together in some sort of book owned by Mrs. J. H. Tully, of another local pioneering family. Since Bear George died 88 years ago, I believe these stories are all out in the public domain since the 75 year limit has been reached. If you are sensitive to the wording of the days in which he lived, or if you do not care for hunting stories, or if you don’t appreciate a wry story teller, you may want to avoid these tales of Wyoming in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It was still a wild and wooly place and Bear George led an adventurous life. Please, let me introduce Bear George McClellan.
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For a moment no more bear showed up, so I ran down toward them and jumped into a spruce tree with straggling limbs. When I got up 10 feet from the ground I saw a bear sitting on his haunches waving his paws about as though inviting the dogs to come closer. I leaned out from the body of the tree and turned the Savage loose on him. He sank down in a heap without a kick.
Thinking that was all I got down out of the tree, and Doll rode up. I told him to see if the old big bear was dead for sure. I had lots of respect for her, so he rode up and fired his six shooter into her head, but she did not move. I then went up and on looking around found only three bears.
”Where is the other one, Doll?”
”I saw one creeping off through the timber.”
I looked in the direction he pointed and saw one of the cubs climbing over a big log, but he was so weak he could hardly make it. He was standing almost straight up when I fired the last shot at him, and the 2 bullets struck within an inch of each other, the last one breaking the backbone and tearing a big hole.
We now began an examination to find where the bullets had hit and to note the effect, for I had been wanting to try the Savage on a big silver tip for the past 3 years. The bullets did not go through the old bear but, went to the skin on the other side, and I have never seen a bear killed more suddenly.
The cubs were badly cut up as the bullets all went clean through and in some cases carried flesh out the other side in chunks as large as a man’s fist.
We started to skin out the bears but soon found it would be dark before we could get through, so we simply took out the entrails and headed for the ranch, which was several miles away. The route was through rough country. We rode and walked by turns and got home about 8 o’clock. Governor Richards and Judge Vandevanter had returned empty handed, and having heard we were on a bear trail we’re anxious to know our success. The first greeting from the governor was:
”Well, did you catch them?”
”Yes: both of them.”
”Yes,” said Doll, “ he got four of them.”
”Four! Well, how did the dogs act?”
”Oh, all right, except that the bears ran the wrong way, and so did the dogs.”
”What? Wouldn’t the dogs tackle them?”
”No; they didn’t get a chance. The bears tackled the dogs first; but the dogs would have torn them to pieces after they were killed if we had let them.”
These four bears were evidently coming into the Big Horn Mountains to hole up for the winter and I happened to strike their trail. It was one of my lucky days and such as I shall probably not have again, although we have good game country. I thought then that scrap was at its hottest that if I got out of it all right I would not look for any more such, but somehow a fellow never can get enough bear, and I reckon if I should find another trail tomorrow, I would follow it, even if there were a dozen bears in the bunch.
The end of “A Red Letter Day With Grizzlies”.
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