Again, some of them charge
home with a ferocious resolution which their extreme tenacity of life
renders especially dangerous; while others can be turned or driven back
even by a shot which is not mortal. They show the same variability in
their behavior when wounded. Often a big bear, especially if charging,
will receive a bullet in perfect silence, without flinching or seeming
to pay any heed to it; while another will cry out and tumble about, and
if charging, even though it may not abandon the attack, will pause for a
moment to whine or bite at the wound.
Sometimes a single bite causes death. One of the most successful bear
hunters I ever knew, an old fellow whose real name I never heard as he
was always called Old Ike, was killed in this way in the spring or early
summer of 1886 on one of the head-waters of the Salmon. He was a very
good shot, had killed nearly a hundred bears with the rifle, and,
although often charged, had never met with any accident, so that he had
grown somewhat careless.
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