He looked like some grizzly
old ruffian grown gray in blood and violence, and scowling on all the
world from his misanthropic seclusion.
The old savage looked up when
I first approached, and gave me a fierce stare; then he fell to
grazing again with an air of contemptuous indifference. The moment
after, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he threw up his head,
faced quickly about, and to my amazement came at a rapid trot
directly toward me. I was strongly impelled to get up and run, but
this would have been very dangerous. Sitting quite still I aimed, as
he came on, at the thin part of the skull above the nose. After he
had passed over about three-quarters of the distance between us, I
was on the point of firing, when, to my great satisfaction, he
stopped short. I had full opportunity of studying his countenance;
his whole front was covered with a huge mass of coarse matted hair,
which hung so low that nothing but his two forefeet were visible
beneath it; his short thick horns were blunted and split to the very
roots in his various battles, and across his nose and forehead were
two or three large white scars, which gave him a grim and at the same
time a whimsical appearance. It seemed to me that he stood there
motionless for a full quarter of an hour, looking at me through the
tangled locks of his mane.
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