To shoot a bear;

              For the past several years my wife, Eve­lyn,
and I have hunted deer in the high
rimrock country in northeastern Ore­gon.
From one of the ridges we can
look across a precipitous canyon of the
Snake River into the mountains of
Idaho. Below is the proposed site of the
Mountain Sheep hydroelectric dam. It
is a vast country, rugged beyond belief.
In hunting this area, binoculars or a
spotting scope are indispensable.
Toward the end of the deer season
last fall, we had glassed over many
miles of the ridges and ravines but had
not located a buck. Then one morning
just after sunrise we spotted a small
buck on a grassy slope above us. The
range was about 250 yards, and I had
time to get into a steady position. My
flat-shooting .270, with 4-power scope
and handloaded ammunition, placed
the bullet as intended on its target. We
field-dressed the animal and headed
back to camp.
When we arrived, we found that
Willard, another hunter who shared our
campsite, was all worked up. He had
shot his deer the day before and had
slept late this morning. Upon arising,
he found that his deer was gone. It had
been hanging near his tent on a sturdy
meat pole lashed between two hem­locks.
Investigating, he found the car­cass
a short distance up the hillside in
the woods, badly chewed up. We knew
of only two animals native to Oregon
that could carry or drag a deer away—
a cougar or a bear. We judged from the
evidence that this was the work of a
bear, a rather large one at that. How­ever,
we had never heard of one doing
anything like this.
Alarm in the Night
That night as darkness approached,
we wondered whether the animal might
possibly return. We thought it very un­likely,
but to be on the safe side I took
my gun into the tent instead of leaving
it in the car. We also decided to hang
some cans on our deer that would make
a racket if anything molested it. It had
been a long day, so we eased into our
sleeping bags a little earlier than usual.
It was about 8:00 p.m., and I went to
sleep almost immediately.
At 8:45 Evelyn reached over and
awoke me, saying, "The cans are rat­tling."
It was as if lightning had struck. I
grabbed the camp light and threw open
the tent flap. Willard had been still up
at his campfire, had heard the noise,
and was coming on the run. I yelled:
"Got your gun?" and he said "Yes."
We dashed around the tent and threw
the light on the deer. The carcass was
swaying eerily, the protective bag
shredded. The front quarters had been
torn off and were missing. I flashed the
light out into the blackness, swinging
it in an arc. The light stopped on two
bright yellow eyes and a glossy black
hulk. Only fifteen paces away was a
large black bear looking me straight in
the eyes. Willard dropped to one knee
and fired. The animal wheeled and dis­appeared
into the woods.
When I recovered enough to ask Wil­lard
what had happened to his aim, he
said he couldn't see the scope's cross­hairs
in the poor light, but thought he
surely couldn't miss at that close range.
I felt a twinge of anger that he had
risked wounding the animal and ex­posing
us to attack.
Much too nervous to go back to sleep
right away, I rigged some more cans on
the front quarters of the deer where the
bear had left them and moved the car
up as close to it as I could, to within
about 30 yards. I settled down in the
front seat with the .270 across my lap
and the camp light beside me. I thought
I would stay there at least until I got
sleepy. I knew that the heavy post
reticle in my scope would show up all
right even with poor lighting.
Within an hour my nerves had stead­ied.
It was the dark of the moon, so I
had to rely on hearing to tell me if the
bear returned. I heard a low "whumph,"
a noise I didn't recognize—the bear re­turning?
I was listening for more clues
when a dull thud sounded on the win­dow
a few inches from my head. A
shock wave ran through me, and turn-