The Grizzly

'Twas the first light of Dawn at the Hundredmilehouse. As I stifled a yawn, donned my camouflage blouse, grabbed the rifle and ammo and mentioned to George, that it's two hours' hiking to get to the gorge. We have come for the King of Canada's woods, brought powerful rifles to deliver the goods. He is bigger and taller, he's faster by far. And I got my bear caller from the boot of the car. As the ranger had told us: 'If in trouble you get, when a grizzly attacks you, stay cool and don't fret. And you best be a clown, make hilarious sounds, look him straight in the eye and jump up and down. Scream or yodle or quack, make it look real crazy, wiggle bums, hips and back- grizzly brains are quite lazy. What the bear can't quite grasp will confuse him the most and until your last gasp you should fight for your post.' 'When you see his head tilt then you know he's confused, what you want -with his build - is to keep him amused.' So we got to the place as the sun came to visit. Looking forward to chase one and bag it, not miss it. After hours of tracking and millions of mozzies we're at last getting close - pretty good for two Aussies. There were freshly snapped twigs and some droppings to boot, we were deep in the sticks in Adrenalin mood. When the DEVIL himself seemed to come to our midst, no ghost and no elf and we WERE getting blitzed. There he stood in his splendour at about 20 feet. He demanded surrender as we hoped to retreat. So we jumped and we danced and we giggled and wiggled, as the bear lightly pranced - in my mind something niggled. Then he tilted his head and HOORAY we both screamed. And perhaps he was fed, he was calmer it seemed. Well, we still had our weapons, number one was the ammo, so, whatever now happens we can hit him and - whammo! When the grizzly now froze and looked straight at us clowns, and his whole body rose and he put on TWO frowns. Two, three steps -we are vermin - he advanced straight at us! I reverted to German: 'Unn was jetzt, was, WAS? ! ! So, we turned on our dimes, dropping rifles and packs, thought of trees that one climbs and of counterattacks. And we ran like young deer, our pants were on fire, disenchanted by fear and advice from a liar. But the grizzly was young and we both felt him gain. I was bursting my lung and my calves were in pain. Three more steps to the edge of a 1000 foot drop: 'Oh dear God, I do pledge, I'll make up, I'll make up! ' And we jumped off the rocks, into freedom we flew, and were quacking like ducks just as scared ducklings do. When we landed at last in a river of ice - it had BEEN such a blast, the adventure sooo nice! But to forestall the snickers 'bout our touch-down, we won't mention our nickers: Our nickers were brown. For: Mini-Wombat II