The Grizzly by Enos A. Mills

When the food of the grizzly bear becomes scarce, he goes to bed and sleeps until a reasonable supply is available, even though he waits five months for it. He feasts on the fullness of the land during the summer and wraps himself in a thick blanket of fat. When winter comes on, he digs a hole and crawls in. This layer of fat is a non-conductor of cold and in due time is drawn on for food.

One autumn day I visited the Hallett Glacier with a professor from the University of Chicago. After exploring one of the upper crevasses, we stood looking down the steep slope of the glacier. New snow had fallen a few days before, and a soft, slushy coating still overlaid the ice. The professor challenged me to coast down the steep, snow-lubricated ice-slope. We seated ourselves on this soft, slippery snow, and he gave the word "Go. " Just as we slid away, we saw at the bottom of the slope, where we were soon to be, a huge grizzly bear. I wish you might have seen our efforts as we tried to change our minds on that steep slope! The grizzly was busily eating grasshoppers, but he heard us coming and fled at a racing gallop, giving an excellent exhibition of his clumsy hind legs reaching out flat-footed.