The Historic Grizzly

[brotherbear]

Continued...
After moving to Missoula, Montana, Wright began roaming the wild Bitterroot Mountains that separate Idaho from Montana. On the Idaho side he came upon a cascading, boulder-strewn stream teaming with spawning salmon, and there in the mud were fresh beat tracks. Wright wrote: 

As I waited along the stream, I was not uncomfortable at first, but as the sun dipped behind the ridge, I began to tremble but still did not want to give up the hunt. Then my teeth began to chatter and I decided that I would wait five more minutes and then leave. 
When I stood to leave, I looked upstream and saw a grizzly very much like the old bear I had studied in the circus many years before. The brute was headed straight for me. I hunkered down and waited until he was so close that escape would be impossible. As I raised my rifle, it seemed certain that my dream of a lifetime was to come true. When some firty yards off, he turned a little to go around a bush and presented a perfect shot. I raised up, aimed carefully just on the point of the shoulder close to the neck, and pulled the trigger. 
It never entered my thoughts but that the bear would drop in its tracks. One can, therefore, imagine my surprise when he gave a roar like a mad bull and came my way on the jump. My rifle jammed ... it looked like I would shortly have all the grizzly down on me I ever wanted. Terrified, I dropped my gun and dove over the stream bank and hid under it. The water was ice cold and I was almost frozen before I jumped in, but now had no regrets. After a half hour of no grizzly charging over the bank after me, I eased out of the water and, though terrified, eased my way toward my rifle. When I finally got a fresh load in it, I again felt brave and began to search for the bear. To my amazement, the brute had expired no more than twenty yards from where he had been shot. Reply