CHAPTER III .-- OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR.
The king of the game beasts of temperate North America, because the most dangerous to the hunter, is the grisly bear; known to the few remaining old-time trappers of the Rockies and the Great Plains, sometimes as "Old Ephraim" and sometimes as "Moccasin Joe"-- the last in allusion to his queer, half-human footprints, which look as if made by some mishapen giant, walking in moccasins.
Bear vary greatly in size and color, no less than in temper and habits.
Old hunters speak much of them in their endless talks over the camp fires and in the snow-bound winter huts.

They insist on many species; not merely the black and the grisly but the brown, the cinnamon, the gray, the silver-tip, and others with names known only in certain localities, such as the range bear, the roach-back, and the smut-face.
But, in spite of popular opinion to the contrary, most old hunters are very untrustworthy in dealing with points of natural history.

They usually know only so much about any given animal as will enable them to kill it.

They study its habits solely with this end in view; and once slain they only examine it to see about its condition and fur.

With rare exceptions they are quite incapable of passing judgment upon questions of specific identity or difference.