In a person’s life, the evil that comes his way does not always appear in human form. Sometimes she takes the form of a predatory beast in layers, in order to test his fortitude and endurance. The hero of our story had to go through unimaginable trials to earn the right to call himself a man and be the crown of nature. It happened during the gold rush in Alaska, when hundreds of thousands of prospectors rushed to the Klondike River to get rich on one of the mushroom-growing mines.
A group of hunters for quick profit went to the upper Yukon to slowly descend the river to explore the local waters in search of a gold-bearing vein. The combined squad consisted of 10 Americans from different states and 3 Indian guides. Gold diggers were in a hurry to stake out the site before the onset of cold weather in order to have time to settle in and prepare for the winter camp. The last time the detachment was seen near the town of Dawson in the summer of 1897, and the group of prospectors had no news until the spring of the following year.
When the only surviving member of the expedition was finally able to get to the nearest settlement, looking around hunted, he diligently told that the detachment was attacked by a huge grizzly bear that followed their tracks for many miles. The predator, destroying 1 prospector after another, showed monstrous ingenuity and cunning, the bear attacked both day and night, lying in wait for the expedition participants at the river plots and near them.
At first, everyone blamed the tents on the fact that the bear had attacked because of the meager hunting grounds, but when the prospectors saw that the places abounded in game, it became clear to them that the bear had turned into a man-eater obsessed with bloodlust.
To protect themselves from the predator, the men burned bonfires for a day on the fly and did not blind the next watch, but despite all precautions for less than a month from the fangs and claws and cannibal, 11 people died in the fight against the cunning bear.
Even the ambush traps did not help, the surviving American and the Indian guide realized that they were facing a life-and-death struggle. Now the men began to arrange a night in the trees, where huge grizzlies could not get them, a desperate Indian offered to build an ingenious trap for the bear from logs with stakes. Suspended with a rope, the prospectors managed to make a trap at the cost of superhuman efforts. Now they could only wait.
The starved grizzly came on the third day and went straight to the trap intending to tear the hidden prospectors to shreds. The collapsed logs seriously injured the predator, and the men from an ambush shot him at point-blank range after examining the carcass of the killed bear.
The Indian pointed to the ingrown remains of the ring in the nose of the beast. Such tricks have long helped to tame predators. Apparently, they once tried to make it tame, but the grizzly somehow managed to escape not adapted to life in the wild. The predator opened the hunt for people angry and knowing human habits.
He turned into the perfect killer. Now the tired travelers had a long way to go back to the settlement, only one American reached it, and an Indian died on the way from scurvy. The locals did not believe the story of the prospector, but when they saw a necklace of predator claws on the wanderer’s neck, they immediately provided him with shelter and food for the survivor.
The man could not earn a penny in Alaska and returned to his hometown with nothing. The man brought an extensive body of knowledge, which later brought him fame as a writer. This was his wealth, which turned out to be much more valuable than a handful of golden sand. If you liked this amazing story, please like and write your comments.