Cowboys Hunt a Silvertip Grizzly That Was Preying on Ranch Horses; Only One Came Back

The story opens in the cramped bunkhouse of the Quartercircle C Bar N ranch on a cold night in the late 1920s. Ten cowhands were preparing for town when the ranch owner, C.L. Nelson, interrupted the revelry with a command: two men must immediately saddle a pack horse and ride to the valley above White Owl Creek. A trapper named Chink Jillings had located a band of wild mares and colts in the valley and also cut the trail of a very large grizzly.

Barney Two-Pony, the full-blooded Cheyenne top hand, was the default choice. His reputation as the ranch's reliable lead made him the natural pick to handle immediate danger. Other named characters in the bunkhouse include Pinto Kressler, and the blond twins Bob and Bill Wretler, but the Old Man singled out Barney for the task.

The decision to act was driven by two concrete facts: the mares and colts were in a remote box canyon in the valley, and Chink Jillings had seen tracks of a large grizzly. Nelson framed the mission as urgent and limited in manpower: only a couple of men could go at once with grub for several days on a pack horse. The plan was tactical and specific—haze the stock into a secure corral, leave one man to guard, and send the other back for reinforcements if the horses proved too wild.

The narrator says the most hair-raising experience of his hunting life happened during this operation. The account describes the grizzly as a formidable threat and the encounter as nearly fatal. The outcome was that only one of the pair who went after the animals and the bear returned to the ranch. The survivor's version of events is presented as a direct, personal recollection of a violent, risky encounter with a large silvertip grizzly that had been stalking the ranch's stock.

This is a firsthand ranching narrative about immediate field decisions in response to a large predator threatening valuable livestock. It highlights the logistics of an urgent roundup, the use of a pack horse and short-term provisions, and the human cost when a silvertip grizzly intervenes in a livestock operation.

The account offers a window into historical ranch practice and the real danger posed by apex predators to valuable stock. It records names and choices made under pressure, and it preserves the personal aftermath: a near-fatal clash that ended with one man alive to tell the tale.