Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1915 — UPSIDE-DOWN SHOT KILLS BIG GRIZZLY [ARTICLE]

UPSIDE-DOWN SHOT KILLS BIG GRIZZLY

Trapper Follows Animal Into Brush So Thick He Is Unable to Arise to Knees to Fire Rifts. M’Bride, B. C., Canada —Joe Juneau, a trapper, who came to this town with his partner,. Bert Wahl, claims he is the only man who ever lay on his back and shot a bear upside-down. “I done it,” sail Juneau, ‘‘and it ain’t so dum funny when you actually have to do it to escape getting hugged by the grizzly. Grizzly huggin’ is one kind I don’t hanker for!” | *. Juneau was tramping'*the mountains in search of something to shoot at. He wanted excitement. “I never met nothin,” he said, “till right on, the edge of the timber, I suddenly saw a big bear! Say, I cut loose with my Mauser without thinkin’ at all. It was a grizzly, and a whopper. “Well, I followed him up- I’d B ot to a small cluster of-Trees before I saw him again. • « “I was so blamed excited I fired again, though I could only see his head and shoulders. But I’d forgot my gun was still sighted for 100 yards, so of course I overshot him. But I guess I parted his hair all right, for he turned and charged right at me. ‘‘But suddenly his bearship changed his mind; He took c long circle, loping off through the meadow. Then I shot a third time and wounded him, too, but it only served to quicken his getaway. 41 r “However, this time I must ’a’ got a little reckless, because I went right after him in spite of my creed not to follow a grizzly, especially a wounded grizzly, single-handed. I followed the blood tracks into thick underbrush. Pretty soon it got so tangled I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl along, pushing my gun ahead of me. -

“I might ’a’ knowed it would happen then. Suddenly I poked my head and shoulders through into a little clearing, and there was that grizzly, reared up right above me 1 '. “There wasn’t no question about his intentions. It had to be dead grizzly or dead man in about the briefest jiffy of time. I just rolled over on my back and I fired at him upside down! The brush was so thick above me that it would ’a’ been impossible to get to my knees in time. ■ “Say, if that grizzly had toppled over forward instead of backward he’d *a’ fallen squarg on top of me. That’s how close we were. ‘’But he fell backward, all right. And for a time after I’d heard the I don’t know which was the deadest, him or.me! It was my first attempt to aim upside down. The scare sort of left me collapsed. But I’d hit him fair, under the chin and up through the mouth into the brain.” If you have hny iron or other metal roofs take a comfortable spelt and paint them. Get all such jobs out of the way before something else begins to crowd you. ’