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Handwritten manuscript by Zane Grey, unsigned, 104 pages, 4.5 x 7.25, headed: "Notes, Hunting Trip, 1919." Grey records notes, dialogue, and diary entries from a lengthy hunting trip in the autumn of 1919, beginning in September and ending in November. In one exciting episode, he jots down the "Story of the big black bear." In part: "H— heard the hounds fighting and started up the slope of the thicket. When he came to an open place he saw the bear and she saw him. The slope was almost straight up. The bear dived down so swiftly that he missed his first shot. And when he had jerked another shell in, he saw black hair right at the muzzle of his rifle. His shot swerved her, and she turned and rolled down into the thicket.
Story of the big silvertip that had been run for days…The bear did not act ugly, but was decidedly unafraid. Mr. H— deliberated a while. He said, because he had women in his camp, and did not want to alarm them. But finally he fired his .9 m at the bear. He claimed that he knocked it down. It ran off down the canyon, and Mr. H— went to get Haught and his sons & dogs to catch the bear he had crippled. It was now near sunset, & Haught wanted to wait till next day, especially as the bear was able to run, and in his estimation not much hurt. But Mr. H— insisted he had crippled it, so Haught put the hounds upon its trail.
They…soon came upon the silvertip feeding. Haught saw that it was neither hurt nor scared. It charged the dogs. He shot it through the neck, and knocked it over. But it got up and charged the men. He & his sons fired 9 shots before the bear went down. Then Mr. H— arrived on the scene, and when the grizzly was at last reeling over he shot his 9 m—and afterward claimed his shot hit the neck. This shot was made by Haught's .30-40. But they let the old man have his say."
Bound by string at the left edge and in overall fine condition, with a few trivial stains and a crease to the left edge of the first page.
These remarkable field notes date from a pivotal period in Zane Grey’s career, when he was already one of America’s most successful writers of Western fiction and increasingly drew upon firsthand wilderness experience for his work. Grey’s 1919 hunting expedition furnished him with the raw material of the frontier—camp life, local characters, dramatic encounters, and stories passed among hunters—and these pages capture that material before it was transformed into polished narrative. The vivid accounts of black bear and grizzly encounters, recorded alongside dialogue and diary entries, offer an unusually direct glimpse into Grey’s working method and the real-life experiences that helped shape the authenticity and adventure of his Western writing.
