The conductors on the St. Paul railroad are most all good sports with a
shot gun. There is Howard and Clason, and Russell, who never tire of
talking of the millions of chickens, ducks, wild turkeys and so forth that
they have killed. They have tried to get Conductor Green interested in
field sports, but he always said the game was not big enough for him. He
said he had his opinion men that would surround a little chicken with
spike tailed dogs, and then kill it and call it sport. What he wanted was
big game. Nothing less than a bear would do him. Last week the owners of
the cinnamon bear that was brought down from the Yellowstone, decided to
have it killed, and some one told them to get Green to kill it, as he was
an old bear hunter from the Rocky Mountains. Green said he was rusty on
bears, not having had a tussel with a grizzly in several years, but if
they couldn't get anybody else to chance the bear he would make hash of
it. So they went down to the ice house where the bear was. Green said he
didn't want anybody to go in with him, because they might get hurt. He put
on Clason's hunting suit, took a carving knife in his teeth and a revolver
in his hand, and went in and looked the bear in the eye. The bear knew
Green meant business, and he began to feel around for his ticket. The
conductor advanced to within eleven feet of the bear when all at once the
animal sprang at him, growling and showing his teeth. Green's first
impulse was to pull the bell rope, and order the cuss to get out of the
ice house, but he saw the bear coming through the air towards him, and
there was not four hours to lose, so he drew the revolver, took aim at the
bear's left eye, and pulled. There was a puff of smoke, and the bear fell
lifeless at his feet. Placing the animal in his game sack, he wiped the
blood from his knife and said to some men who stood outside, their faces
ashy pale: "Always shoot bears in the left eye." The men were
pleased to see him come out alive and they shook him warmly by the hand.
The other conductors, the shooters, are jealous of Green, and they are
telling how he killed the bear by going up in the loft of the ice house
and falling on him, and one conductor says Green shot the bear with a crow
bar through a knot hole. Another said the bear had all four of his legs
tied and that a dose of poison was administered through a syringe,
attached to a pole, while another says that the bear died from fright. All
these stories are the result of jealousy. The bear was killed just as we
say, and there are few men that would tackle him--that is, few men aside
from conductors.