I did cook the meat well done, after eating a good portion of a three or four pound roast I took off the best part of the deer. I mean to tell you, that was the best damn food I ever ate. I kept going back for more.

There it was again. Something is watching me. I can feel the eyes on me. The snow is mostly melted after a week of snow and more snow. Warmer than it has been, but cold enough to freeze meat.

Then, I remembers, I need to clean up the mess I left. I know better, but when you're starving, as soon as you got food, you eats, and there's plenty of light for me to get everything cleaned up and stored once I take a nap, maybe.

The sound woke me up as my deer roast fell into the fire after burning up. I stood straight up. I never heard a sound like that before. There it was again. I didn't need to reach for my Hawkin, it was in my arms. I went down between the rocks where I'd cleaned the deer and cut off the roast to eat.

As I came out between the rocks, the griz heard me, and he turned in my direction and started to charge. I had no time for thinking. I put the Hawkin up to my shoulder and fired in the same instant.

The griz fell about twenty yards away. I shook so bad I needed to sit down, and when I did, I realized everything I didn't know and wasn't told about a griz. He didn't take to being shot very well, and I had me an empty Hawkin lying at my feet, when the griz got up.

No one told me that when you shoot a griz, reload pretty damn fast, cause griz don't always stay shot. I reached for my gun, but my shot and powder was back next to where I made camp. I tried to get in between the rocks, but the bear should have had me by then and he didn't.

I ran to get my shot and a ball, hooking the pounces to my felt. I went back and reloaded the Hawkin and I took off after the griz.

That was my griz. I shot it fair and square. I aimed to drag that critter back to the cabin and drop it down in front of Paw. I could hear the griz in the brush. I knew there was a drop off to my right. That's why I made camp there. Nothing was coming at me from the cliff side. The mountain was all ahead and above me.

The griz was in the thicket a quarter mile from where I shot him. I needed to bring him down. I didn't like leaving a wounded animal, and especially the animal I needed to prove my manhood to Paw.

While no one told me that a griz takes a lot of shooting, something else never came up about the griz. They sometimes run in pairs. I would have laughed if someone told me that right then, because I had me a shot at the wounded griz. Except something wasn't right. I felt the hot wind on my neck. It was cold as hell and there was no not breeze on that mountain, unless it came from a griz.

When he roared, I swung around. He was close enough to knock the Hawkin out of my hands and it flew into the brush. I fell on my hands and knees I crawled as fast as I could and I heard the roar and he was like ten feet behind me.

As I got into an open space, the first griz had fallen on its back a dozen feet from me. The second griz was hot on my heels. I stood and ran, until I realized, there was nothing but a dead drop in the direction I was going.