Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

A correspondent in California gives us the following specimen of hunting in that region:
“I have seen together in one drove [I may say in safety,] from two to three thousand elk. This was on the Joaquin Bottom. Deer are to be met with at a short distance from the dwellings in any of the valley’s. Antelopes inhabit the plains, and are the wildest of our game.
“We have bears, grisly, brown and black, and the largest in the world, taken together. Many of their hides are larger than the bullocks. A few days ago, when returning from the Sacramento Valley, I fell in with an acquaintance of mine, who informed me, that himself and two other gentlemen, all three first rate lassers [to throw the lasso] went out for sport a short distance into the valley, where there was plenty of clover, and soon discovered a bruin feeding. The men charged upon him on good horses, and each threw his lasso. In an instant the bear was held by the neck and legs by the three. The lasso was made of rawhide, four platt, 3-4ths of in diameter. In this situation, they tumbled the old fellow for a short time, by all the men starting the same way on a full trot, or as near so as possible, for he was too heavy for the three horses to trot with. Once get them well in motion, and they roll over and over like a log of wood. Bruin, after he came to his right recollection, and remembering that he had strength, sprung at once on his hind feet, sat down on his rump, bracing himself with his hind feet, and then with his paws or hands he snapped the lassos as if they had been small twine, and instead of being dragged along, he made a charge upon the enemy, and they had to put spurs to their horses, and get out of his way as speedily as possible. One of the gentlemen had a rifle, and as the bear passed him in pursuit of the others, he fired at him and the ball took effect. The bear retreated to some brush close by, where he was suffered to remain. The gentlemen had all the sport out of him they wanted. His flesh or hide they did not desire. They left for the house with the intention of getting their dogs and with them drive the animal out of the brush; but, in the mean time a few natives had been out gathering berries, and a young squaw approaching the brush, the bear sallied out, and seizing her head in his mouth, crushed it to pieces, all in an instant, and without disturbing her other two companions. They proceeded in the same direction-another squaw and an Indian-he rushed out upon the squaw, killed her; the Indian taking to his heels, the bear followed, overtook and dispatched him also; and then returned to his old retreat, and was found there the next day, dead, from the wound received from the rifle.