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[Crying]

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Some years ago, one of my friends in Seward let me run out his cabin for cheap as a favor.

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It was only for a few days.

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I had told him how I'd been wanting to get away from home for a little bit, to relax,

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and to finish reading some books I'd been putting off.

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I'm not much of an outdoorsy kind of person, but I do appreciate the tranquility from time

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to time.

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I live in Anchorage, so it wasn't that far from home, either.

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If I'm remembering correctly, this would have been in the first couple weeks of October.

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The days were getting shorter, and the weather was getting colder.

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Tourism was dying down, so my friend was happy to let me stay on the cheap.

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The cabin probably would have been empty otherwise.

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I drove out there on my own.

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I thought of inviting someone out, but decided at the last minute that it would be nicer

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to be alone.

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I was still living with roommates at the time, so having a whole cabin to myself sounded great.

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Probably for the best, too.

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The cabin wasn't too fancy.

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One bedroom, one bathroom, and not a whole lot else.

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The drive-over was uneventful.

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I can't remember a lot of the details from the day that I arrived.

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I was just excited to be alone, reading my books, sandwiched between the shore and the

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forest.

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I remember it being frigid, but that wasn't surprising.

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All the morts' hues to stay in with my books, after all.

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I left to the laughter breakfast, stopped for groceries in town, and I arrived in Miller's

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landing in the early afternoon.

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I settled in, made myself a late lunch, and cracked open one of my paperbacks.

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Well, I only mentioned this because it seems funny to me now.

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I had brought a few thriller and horror novels with me.

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I told another friend of mine that I'm not one to scare easily, and she took this as a

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challenge, immediately thrusting a few Stephen King novels into my hands.

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That evening, in particular, I picked up pet cemetery.

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Turns out I scare easier than I thought.

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I was just so embarrassing to think that I got so jumpy at what was just words on paper.

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I lost track of time.

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I didn't even realize the sun was setting until I had to turn on the living room lamp in order

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to continue reading.

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I was really into my book.

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More importantly though, I was really jumpy.

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Little sounds startled me.

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I nearly leapt out of my skin when I first heard the gentle pitter-patter of something

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on the window pane, only to find that it was the intermittent thaw of snowflurries.

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At one point I got up to make sure all the doors and windows were locked.

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I was seriously on edge.

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I kind of wonder if I would have noticed what happened that night had it not been for

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how skittish that book made me.

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It's hard to say exactly what time it began, but it was sometime around sunset.

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I was still deep into my reading.

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I heard bear sounds coming from outside.

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It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that bears are just a fact of life on this side

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of North America.

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We don't necessarily run into them on a daily basis, especially if you stay in town, but

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you're always at least a stone's throw away from a bear's stomping ground.

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So when I heard the low growling of a bear from somewhere outside the cabin, it scared

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me good, don't get me wrong.

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But the moment I'd listened long enough to understand what it was, I breathed a sigh of

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relief almost immediately.

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Bears don't break into cabins.

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Bears generally want nothing to do with human life.

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I know that as of recently there have been more news of break-ins in what have you, but

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back then it just didn't happen.

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And even if a bear did decide to break in, I always kept bear spray handy.

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This is all to say, the presence of a bear, especially one that was outside while I was

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inside, wasn't that big of a deal.

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It didn't even sound that close relatively.

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It definitely wasn't right next to a window or anything.

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The big deal though was the sound that followed.

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A sound I did not recognize.

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Because I heard that bear rumble and grumble and I said to myself, "Well, that's a bear."

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And I went back to my reading.

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And then a few moments passed, and I heard another sound, something that seemed to respond

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to the bear sound in kind.

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And it gave me enough pause to put my book down.

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I assumed it would be another bear that two grislies were getting into each other's business

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and they were about to have a terrified about it.

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But the second sound did not sound like another bear.

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It sounded just different enough that I could not be sure.

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So I sat up and listened carefully, curious to hear more.

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Again came the familiar loud territorial growl of a grisly.

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And then came the reply, something gutterall and higher pitched, though still resembling

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the bellow of a wild animal.

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I could not relax after that.

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I couldn't let it go.

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I got up and I looked through each of the cabin windows until I found one that looked directly

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at the source of the commotion.

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The largest window in the bedroom looked directly out into the forest, just barely breaching

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the tree line.

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I had to turn off the light to get rid of the glare on the glass.

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And suddenly I felt very cold and alone as I sat there in the dark bedroom and peered

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out into the woods.

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I still had a squint to see what was going on.

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They must have been about forty to fifty yards away.

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But once I locked eyes on them, I couldn't unsee them.

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I watched as a grisly bear circled a huge creature, something that stood upright on two legs,

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and definitely was not another bear.

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It was difficult to say for certain in the dim light of the dusk, but the other creature

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had darker hair all over its body.

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The grisly was still plotting around on all fours, so it was hard to say which one was

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bigger.

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It seemed that the other non-bear creature should have been taller.

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But it had the advantage of standing to its full height.

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When I looked out on the altercation, the two creatures were not moving much.

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They were in the middle of a stand-off.

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Both were ambling and angling in either direction, hoping to get a jump on the other.

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Even from my vantage point, I could feel the tension mounting between the two.

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I may not have thought this in the moment as I was still stunned into a state of quiet

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observation, but I was looking at a turf battle between a grisly bear and a big foot.

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At the time I still wasn't entirely convinced that I wasn't looking at another bear, and

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that it was my own deficiency in knowing how bears looked and worked that was to blame.

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And the longer I looked at that thing, the more bewildered I became as to what it was I

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was looking at.

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I think it's just as well. It seems reckless to me to just reflexively cry Sasquatch into

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these situations.

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But I'm much more certain now, of course.

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I could feel myself holding my breath as I watched this hostile dance between the two of them,

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somehow still anxious that maybe just by witnessing this confrontation that I was somehow involved

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or in danger.

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And I don't blame myself for being nervous, seeing a fight between a bear and any other creature

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in itself would be an adrenaline rush.

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What I was seeing was both exhilarating and confusing.

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The two creatures continued their slow circle around each other.

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Then the bear began to rear back, revving up for something big.

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It propelled itself onto its hind legs, leaping up to stand to its full height.

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From there I could see that the two were equally matched in length.

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If one was larger than the other, I couldn't tell very well.

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As the bear brought itself up into the air, it used the momentum to throw its weight onto

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the bigfoot, claws first.

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The bigfoot held its ground.

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It guarded itself with its forearms, bracing itself from the bear's blow, and then barrelled

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into its opponent, knocking the grizzly backwards and into a tree.

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I couldn't believe my eyes.

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This was playing out like some kind of mythological combat between two titanic creatures.

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But I was invested now.

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I had in my nose pressed to the window pane, and my hands were closed around my face to block

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out any excess light.

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They were circling each other again.

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It was hard to tell if either one of them was injured or even rattled yet.

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They strafed to either side, watching each other for the faintest movement, each one ready

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to pounce.

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With the bear on all fours, it looked like the bigfoot was having a tough time trying

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to figure out how to grapple it.

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To bend down and get low to meet the grizzly might have been inadvisable, unless it had

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the strength to manhandle hundreds of pounds of prehybernation bear meat, and it was probably

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better for bigfoot to wait for the bear to rear up again.

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The grizzly, perhaps sensing this, tried to claw at the bigfoot a couple of times.

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It also tried to reach out and sink its teeth into the bigfoot's legs, but bigfoot he was

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way too quick on his big feet, and he shuffled away with ease.

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He stepped into a corner, the bear once more stood up to meet the bigfoot in an upright

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position, throwing itself against its opponent once, twice, and then one final time, each time

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digging its claws into the Sasquatch.

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Each time it was hit, the Sasquatch let out an awful sound that was somewhere between

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ape and human roaring out in agony.

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I couldn't see blood, but I had seen the depth at which a bear's

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claws can score through something like solid tree bark.

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I knew that if the grizzly was digging in at full force, that bigfoot had to have been badly

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injured at this point.

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Its posture certainly seemed to indicate this, before it had stood to its full height, which

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was somewhere between eight to nine feet, but now it was doubled over, holding one arm

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against its torso.

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The grizzly had gotten him good.

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It made sense that the bigfoot might be on the wrong foot to handle this fight.

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If I'm assuming correctly, Sasquatch is not exactly known for having sharpened claws and

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teeth, like a bear.

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It seemed to me that the most bigfoot brought to this fight was pure brute strength and

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solid stature.

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Against most other animals, this would be enough.

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But against one of the biggest and baddest predators on US soil, bigfoot had met his match.

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Now worst case scenario was that this was a mother, and her cubs were somewhere nearby.

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But who knows, maybe this bigfoot was in a similar situation?

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In any case, the final standoff was the tensest one yet.

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The bigfoot showed obvious apprehension.

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It clearly had stakes, but could not continue.

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They circled each other once more, moving so slowly that it was almost imperceptible from

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where I was sitting.

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It was getting darker, and it was even harder to see the battle between the trees.

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Finally, the bigfoot shifted in the opposite direction, pointing its body away from the

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bear, but keeping its eyes on it.

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He began to back away, taking his time as if to say he wanted to keep fighting.

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The grizzly, however, was not impressed.

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It roared at bigfoot again, and the bigfoot led out an aggressive snarl that surely was

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all talk.

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There was no mistaking the saskwatches' slow retreat back into the Alaskan wilderness.

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I watched for a long time.

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The grizzly kept its feet planted, and its haunches raised.

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The bigfoot made short steps backwards in a way.

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My eyes followed him until I couldn't see him anymore beyond the trees.

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The grizzly didn't move either.

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Shifted a little bit, maybe relaxed after a while, but it kept its eyes and its nose in the

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direction of where the bigfoot had retreated.

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Both the grizzly and eyes stayed just like that for a while.

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I half expected for the bigfoot to return, if only because I was curious to see it again.

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Their fight had been far away and intense, so I never felt like I got a good enough look

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at it.

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I wish so badly that I had seen its face in more detail.

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But the bigfoot never returned, and eventually the grizzly and eye both decompressed.

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The bear didn't go anywhere.

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It kind of paced back and forth in the same spot, sniffing around and looking around.

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It seemed to remain there, just in case any other dangers passed by.

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All sunlight was nearly gone by this time.

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"I'm not sure how long I stayed there.

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It became too dark for me to see the bear, and I finally backed away from the window.

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I went back to the living room.

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I had been so engrossed in my book before, but now the idea of sitting down to read seemed

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so boring compared to what I had just seen.

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The next day, while the sun was still out, I wandered outside with bear spray and toe,

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mind you.

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And I approached the area where I had seen the fight.

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I tried not to get too close.

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Even with my bear spray, I didn't particularly care to meet any bears if I could help it.

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But my curiosity had gotten the best of me.

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I stepped around the perimeter where I'd seen the bear and the bigfoot duking it out.

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I was specifically looking for footprints.

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I figure if the guy lived up to the name that I would see his footprints clear as a day,

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but the underbrush was too messy.

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Not enough soft dirt to leave any obvious indentations.

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At least none that I could see.

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What I did see, though, was almost as good.

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A trail of blood speckled across a cluster of large flat rocks, browned by time, and leading

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in the same direction that the bigfoot had walked away the night before.

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[BLANK_AUDIO]