Published in the Chicago Daily Tribune on 06/05/1880.
Helena [M. T.] Independent.
    On Saturday, the 8th last., Hannibal Roe, the best known hunter in Montana, met with an adventure which maimed him for life. He had gone up the Little Prickly Pear to Wolf Creek Station, and with his gun in good condition, he passed into the mountains. While he was walking in a small gulch, and just as he had turned a point of rocks which protruded abruptly from the mountain side he received upon the left side of his head and face a stunning blow from the paw of an immense she-bear, which it appears was lying in wait for him on the other side of the rocks. The blow knocked Roe down and caused him to lose possession of his gun, which was the only weapon he had with him, and at the same instant the infuriated beast throwing herself upon the prostrate form of her astonished, disarmed, and wounded victim, the man and bear were precipitated together about fiftteen feet down the steep bank to the bed of the gulch. Having nothing to defend himself with, Roe quickly determined to “play the dead man,” and, turning upon his face, feigned unconsciousness through one of the most trying ordeals ever experienced by a human being. The bear evidently concluded if her prey was dead he had been killed by her own strong paws, and begun to feast. Beginning upon his head she literally tore the scalp to shreds, leaving it in a condition horrible to look at. He says he could both hear and feel her teeth grating upon his skull. She then began on his left shoulder, inflicting there a ghastly and dangerous wound, and bit him in several places upon his left arm side, and back down as far as the hip. Just as she had driven her teeth into the hip, and was doubtless upon the point of inflicting such wounds as would have caused instant death, one of her cubs raised a cry of distress. It was at this point that Mr. Roe’s play of “dead man,” which had hitherto seemed so unavailing, was of great service to him. The bear evidently thought her victim dead, and, leaving him, hastened to the relief of her young, intending, it is supposed, to finish her meal at pleasure. Though bruised, mangled, and fatigued,-his scalp a bleeding mass of torn flesh and matted hair hanging about his brow, his cheek and ear torn off until they hung at his side by but a slender strip, his cheek-bone broken, his skull fractured above the eye, his shoulder, arm, and side badly injured,-he nevertheless summoned sufficient strength to rise and get away before his antagonist arrived. He was brought by some fellow hunters to St. John’s Hospital, in this city, and by skillful nursing will very likely recover.
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