Humans and bears - Wild encounters

[brotherbear]

The Grizzly Bear... May 14, 1805. Toward evening the men in the hindmost canoes discovered a large brown bear lying in the open grounds about 300 paces from the river. Six of them, all good hunters, immediately went to attack him, and concealing themselves by a small eminence, came unperceived within forty paces of him. Four of the hunters now fired and each lodged a ball in his body, two of them directly through the lungs. The furious animal sprang up open-mouthed upon them. As he came near, the two hunters who had reserved their fire gave him two wounds, one of which, breaking his shoulder, retarded his motion for a moment; but before they could reload he was so near that they were obliged to run to the river, and before they reached it he had almost overtaken them. Two jumped into the canoe, the other four separated, and concealed themselves in the willows, fired as fast as each could reload. They struck him several times, but instead of weakening the monster, each shot seemed only to direct him toward the hunter; till at last he pursued two of them so closely that they threw aside their guns and pouches and jumped down a perpendicular bank of twenty feet into the river. The bear sprang after them, and was within a few feet of the hindmost when one of the hunters on shore shot him in the head and finally killed him. They dragged him to the shore and found that eight balls had passed through him in different directions. The bear was old and the meat tough, so that they took the skin only."  Reply