THE STORY OF BEN

Mystory of Ben starts on the 22d of June, 1890. Ben’s own story had begun some four or five months earlier, in the den where his mother, who was a Black Bear, had spent the winter; but although I came to know Ben rather intimately later on, he never spoke of his early childhood to me and I never asked him about it. So we’ll take that part for granted.

Early in May of that year three of us, Martin Spencer, Jack O’Brien, and myself, had set out from Spokane, Washington, to hunt grizzlies and prospect for gold in the rugged and, at that time, largely unexplored Bitter Root Mountains, in Idaho. We had a small pack train and a large stock of enthusiasm, and we arrived at the foothills with both in good condition. But although it was well past the middle of the month when we reached the mountains, we soon found ourselves floundering in snow-drifts that increased in depth as we climbed, and when, for several days on end, we had cut our way with a two-handed saw through fallen trees that barred our progress and had dug the saddle and pack horses out of pot holes in the snow into which a misstep or an act of deliberate stupidity had sent them rolling, both men and horses had become exhausted. And so, when a cold storm had added itself to our other troubles, we had pitched camp in a little opening facing the south and settled down to wait for better days. And we had waited there three solid weeks.

Once, on the morning of the 19th of June, dawn had shown us a clear sky, against which, fifty miles to the east of us, we could see the main range of the jagged Bitter Roots; and after eating a cheerful breakfast we had hastily broken camp, packed our horses, and started for the summit of the ridge along which we proposed to travel. But here, roaring up out of the next valley, we had met another great storm of icy wind and swirling snow, and I had soon been forced to leave my companions with the horses while I stumbled down the mountain and hunted up another sheltered spot where we could take refuge from the huge storm. And so by noon we had once more found ourselves crowded under a hemlock bark lean-to, thankfully facing a blazing fire of logs and listening to the wind howling overhead. And it was not until the afternoon of the 21st that the storm had passed. Then at last the sun had come out hot and clear and had begun forcing the great masses of snow that clung to the limbs of the trees to loosen their grip so that the forest was filled with the splash of their falling, while laden bushes jerked their heads free from the weight that bore them down and the horses stood steaming with the warm air.

But the burnt child fears the fire, and we had determined to be dead sure of the weather conditions this time before we went ahead; so we first climbed to the top of the ridge to study the country through our glasses and at the same time try to look a little bit into the future in the matter of the weather. The storm, we found, covered a tract of country about fifteen miles in width and fifty to sixty miles in length, and where we stood was about midway of the western end of its range. Some two miles along the ridge on which we were we could see a gap in the hills, and Spencer and I started over to explore this, while Jack took his rifle and a dog that he had brought along and started down the mountain.

Spencer and I, after reconnoitring the gap, catching a mess of small trout from a stream that flowed through it, and following the track of a large grizzly for some miles, reached camp after dark, and found that O’Brien had returned some time before after having had a more interesting adventure. It seemed that, when some two miles from camp, he had heard, above the constant splash of falling snow, the crying of some animals, and as the sound seemed to be coming nearer and nearer he had crouched down behind a large log and, holding his dog in check, had waited and watched. Shortly, out from among the trees, there appeared a large Black Bear followed by three tiny cubs, the whole family having evidently just left their winter quarters. It must have been an amusing procession, for the old bear was ploughing her way through the soft and slushy snow, making large holes into which the baby bears would fall, and out of which, being so small, they were scarcely able to flounder. They were quite unable, therefore, to keep the pace set by their mother, and the old bear would slouch along for a while and then sit down and watch them as they struggled to catch up. And all the time they kept up the whimpering, crying sound that had attracted Jack’s attention.

But I am afraid O’Brien was more interested in bear meat than in bear habits, for as soon as these animals drew near his hiding-place he let loose the dog, who drove the mother up one tree and the cubs up another; and having shot the old one and decided that it might be possible to catch the youngsters alive next day, he returned to camp.

The next morning, as soon as we had had breakfast, we put pack saddles on a couple of ponies and, taking some empty gunny-sacks along in which to put the cubs if we caught them, started out to bring in the meat and hide of the old bear. It had come on to rain again during the night, and a cold drizzle was falling as we started out; and in that steep-sided and unbroken wilderness, half buried in the melting snows of a mountain winter, the going was both slow and dangerous. However, we managed to reach the bottom of the ravine where Jack had seen the bears without accident, and once near the place we tied the horses and crept forward as silently as might be, thinking to steal up on the cubs unheard and perhaps catch them before they could reach and climb a tree. The carcass of the dead bear lay about fifty feet from a huge fir tree, and we soon saw the three cubs, huddled together, and sitting on the body of their dead mother. But it was evident that they were aware of our approach, for they were on the alert and keeping a sharp lookout in our direction. So when we had worked up as near as possible, and had reached the last cover between ourselves and them, we crouched behind a fallen log and laid out a plan of campaign.

It was plain to be seen that we were not going to catch the cubs off their guard, and it was equally evident that we would have to do some mighty quick sprinting if we were going to beat them to the foot of the big fir tree. So we agreed to move forward little by little until the bears began to be alarmed, and then to make a dash for the tree in hope of intercepting them. But we had scarcely wormed our way over the log and begun our sneaking approach, when all three cubs rose on their hind legs for a clearer view of their suspicious visitors, and a moment later they bounded down from their bed in the dead mother’s fur and began floundering through the snow and water toward the fir tree.

The little fellows (the largest of them would not have weighed over five pounds) had looked to be half dead with cold and misery, and the snow and slush was over their heads; but for all that they reached the tree ahead of us, and started up the rough trunk like so many cats. I just managed to grab the hindmost of them by one leg as she was scrambling out of reach, and after a good deal of squalling, clawing, and biting, the little woolly ball was landed in one of the gunny-sacks, the mouth tied up, and the package deposited on a log out of the way. Then we began figuring out ways and means of catching the two cubs in the big fir tree. The rough trunk of this old settler shot up forty feet from the ground without a limb, and the cubs looked down at us from the lowest branches, pushing out their upper lips and uttering short “whoofs,” exactly as a grown bear would have done. There seemed to be but one way to get them alive, and this was to shin up the old tree and shake them down as one would ripe plums. Spencer and Jack agreed to catch them before they could again take to a tree, if I would undertake the climbing and shaking: and after some little talk I closed the bargain. The hardest part of the task seemed to me to be the shinning of the old tree. The rest looked easy, but that was before I had tried it. Any one who has never had the pleasure of dislodging a bear from the limb of a tree by shaking is apt to think it an easy matter; but he will change his mind after a little experience.

The bark of the fir tree was rough and afforded good finger holds, and it also scraped the skin off the inside of my knee, but in due time I reached the lower limbs and, seating myself on one of these, rested for a few minutes. Then I began climbing up after the cubs, who moved higher up at my approach. One of them, after climbing some twenty feet, crawled out on a branch and, as I came to him first, I gave the limb a gentle shake expecting to see him roll off and go tumbling down through the boughs to the ground below. As the cub did not drop at the first shake, I gave another and harder one. As this did not dislodge him, I stood on the branch and, grasping the limb over my head with both hands jumped up and down with all my might and, after several minutes of this exercise, saw the youngster lose his desperate grip on the small branches and go smashing down out of sight. And a moment later a loud splash announced his arrival at his destination. Even then, I learned afterward, he got to his feet and had nearly reached another tree before he was captured.

The racket that had been raised in dislodging the one cub had so frightened the other that he had climbed to the topmost branch of the tree, and here I found him with his head down, snorting and striking with his little paws. If he had weighed fifty pounds he would have been an ugly customer to handle, but as it was there was no danger from him. But there was considerable difficulty, for he had climbed so high that I did not dare trust my weight to the small branches, and, shake as I might, I was unable to dislodge him. Finally I climbed down to where the limbs were longer, cut one of them with my jack-knife, and, using it as a pole, succeeded in poking the cub out of his perch. And as he shot past me I called to the boys to look out and listen for the splash of his arrival. But instead of the expected sound I heard Martin call out that the cub had caught on a lower limb and was climbing back up the tree. This was aggravating, but I thought that at least I had the upper hand of him this time and started down to meet him.

He had taken refuge on one of the longest branches of the old fir, and as he was too far out for me to reach with my pole, I had recourse to my former tactics. I stood up on the branch the cub was on, grasped a higher one with both hands, and put all my strength and weight into a succession of violent shakes. The bear slipped inch by inch out toward the end of the limb; first one paw and then the other lost its grip; at last he hung down from the outermost fork by what looked like one toe nail. But further than this he refused to yield. Round and round he swung as long as the shaking lasted, which was until I was completely out of wind and compelled to stop for breath; and then back the little beggar climbed, and by the time I had got ready for another inning he was safe in the original position.

This was repeated again and again until it became evident that only complete exhaustion on the part of one or other of the contestants would end the bout. And I won by a hair. The plucky little fellow let go and was landed squalling in the sack with the others, while I rested up before undertaking my slower journey to the ground. Then we skinned the old bear, cut up the meat, packed the whole on the horses, fastened the sack containing the cubs to one of the packs, and returned to camp.

Just back of the bark shack which we had built there was a steep bank, and into this, with pick and shovel, we dug a hole. Over the top of the excavation we placed poles, and having covered these with bark threw a foot or more of dirt on top, thus making a nice little cave for the cubs. We then gathered pine needles, dried and warmed them by the fire, and filled up the den with them. From a tanned buckskin we cut long thongs, fastened little buckskin collars around our orphans’ necks, and so tied them to a stake driven into the ground in front of the cave. We each, naturally, laid claim to a cub. And as I was given first choice as a reward for the climbing I had done to get them, I chose the determined, spunky little chap that had been the last one caught. He was the middle one in size, but I made up my mind to treat him gently and keep him, if possible, until he should be a large bear. Jack took the first one caught, it being the smallest and a female. The other two were males. Spencer named his bear George, Jack decided to bring his up without any name, while I called my wee cublet Ben, after “Ben Franklin,” the pet grizzly of one of my boyhood’s heroes, old James Capen Adams, the tamer and exhibitor of grizzly bears who, in the fifties and sixties, became famous as Grizzly Adams.

But now that we had caught our cubs, housed them, parcelled them out, and named them, we had to face another problem. How were we going to feed them, and, worse still,whatwere we going to feed them? Old Grizzly Adams, when he caught his “Ben” as an even tinier cub than mine, had induced a greyhound that he had with him and that happened to have puppies at the time to nurse the foundling. But Jack’s dog could not help us that way and we had to make other arrangements.

We began by taking a frying-pan, a little flour and water, some condensed milk and a pinch of sugar, and stewing up a sort of pap. When this had cooled off we each took a teaspoon and a squalling, kicking cub and began experimenting. The cubs, small as they were, had sharp claws, teeth like needles, and a violent objection to being mollycoddled; and so, although we each had on heavy buckskin gloves, and each held a cub under one arm, its front paws with one hand and a teaspoon with the other, the babies took most of their first meal externally. The little rascals looked like pasty polar bears when the fight was over. But they acted better the second try and soon learned to like their new diet. And in a day or two they learned to feed themselves out of a plate. And it was not very long before our problem was, not to induce them to eat, but to satisfy their unappeasable appetites.

Meanwhile, however, we had had other troubles. At the conclusion of their first meal we had put them into their den, placed sections of bark against the opening, rolled a boulder in front of the improvised door, and left them, as we thought, for the night. But we were soon awakened by the cries of the lonesome little fellows, and, as there seemed to be no prospect of their quieting down, I finally got up, built a fire, warmed some of the gruel, and gave them another feed. I then warmed a couple of flat rocks, placed these under the pine needles, and again tucked the babies into bed. By daybreak I had to get up and give them an early breakfast.

This was the first night, but it was no sample of what followed. The interval between feeds became less and less until the feeding quieted them only so long as the feeding act lasted. Then, as soon as a cub was put down, it set up a bawling that was unbearable. One night we put them all in a sack and tied the mouth. This kept them from bawling so long as they could not get out of the sack, but they all fell to work with tooth and nail, and their combined voices soon announced that they had succeeded in freeing themselves and were pacing in front of their cave making it impossible for us to sleep. I got up and put them into another sack, and this sack inside another. Then I put the bundle in the den and, with the shovel, buried it more than a foot deep with dirt. Then I put rocks over the top and front of their house. At first the snuffing and snorting they made in working on the sack was nearly as bad as the bawling, but we finally got to sleep in spite of it; only, however, to be aroused later on by familiar sounds that proclaimed that the sacks had been clawed to bits, the cave dug open, and that the trio were waiting to see what kind of game we would next invent for their entertainment. This was our last attempt to keep them quiet. After that we fed them all they would eat and then let them howl.

During the day they would play contentedly in front of the den for a part of the time. But when the two male bears settled down to sleep the little vixen of a female would howl and fret and finally take to clawing and biting them, so that at last they would come out and join in her walking and bawling. As soon as we discovered this we separated them, making another cave for the female, and after this we were not bothered so much with the crying, and in a few days this ceased altogether.

We stayed at this camp more than two weeks, waiting for the weather to settle; and though we did some fishing and a little hunting we were, for the most part, held close by the steady rain and gave much time to the training of our cubs. Each of us of course adopted his own system of education. O’Brien, being an Irishman, would hear of no half measures; talked of “sparing the rod and spoiling the child,” and was determined to be master in his own house. In this way he soon developed a disposition in his little cub that I have never seen equalled for viciousness in any animal whatever. She would, at the mere sound of Jack’s voice, become a vindictive little devil; and she would spit, and strike at, and fight him until she was completely exhausted. And when she finally died from the effects of the constant whippings he gave her in trying to break her spirit, she tried to bite him with her last breath.

Ben and George occupied the original little cave in the bank, and we spent many hours laughing at their antics. At first they would scratch and bite if you touched them, but we never whipped them nor corrected them in any way and they soon lost their fear of us. We put on heavy leather gloves, handled them gently but firmly, and—let them chew. They were so small that they could do us no harm and after a few days they grew gentle as kittens. It was not long before, when they were not tied up, they would come and climb into our laps. They would lick our hands like puppies and, when allowed to, would come into our tent and snuggle down beside us on our blankets. During the whole five years that I kept Ben I never once struck or whipped him and never allowed any one to tease him, and a more gentle and playful animal I never saw.

Just in front of their little den there was a large stump with a long root that sloped away down the bank. One day when Spencer was playing with the cubs, he picked up one of them and placing it, doubled up like a ball, on the old root, sent it rolling downward. To our amazement the bear did not try to regain his feet until he stopped rolling some fifteen feet away, and Spencer was so tickled with the act that he brought him back and once more sent him tumbling down the incline. The result was the same as before. The bear kept whirling until he landed at the end of the root. The other cub was now brought out and we found that he would do the same thing. We sent them down, first backward, then forward, and either way the little fellows seemed to enjoy the sport as much as we; and it was not long before they would climb up on the root and, ducking their tiny heads, would go rolling down the toboggan slide, and in the end we actually had to tie them up to keep them from overdoing it.

Making friends

Sometimes they would play like kittens. They would roll over and over, biting and wrestling, and we would laugh until our sides fairly ached. At other times they seemed to feel cranky and out of sorts, and then they would claw and fight each other. These spells always occurred when they were tied to their stake and were pacing the circle in front of their cave.

We continued to keep them fastened most of the time by their buckskin leads to the stake driven near their den, and they spent much of their time walking round and round in circles. They never however, by any chance, accompanied each other in the same direction, but invariably travelled different ways; and for the most part they rather ignored each other when they met on these journeys, or stopped to play in all friendliness. Perhaps they would pass without noticing each other a dozen times, when suddenly, as they met again, they would rise on their hind legs and look at each other with an expression of complete surprise, as who should say: “Where in all creation didyoucome from? Here I have been travelling this circle for half an hour, and never mistrusted there was another bear in this part of the country.” And then, as though determined to celebrate the lucky meeting, they would embrace and tumble about for a few minutes and then separate and, perhaps, pass each other a dozen times more with no notice taken. And then the little comedy would be re-enacted.

But on days when their tempers were touchy these meetings were apt to be less playful. Instead of surprise they would then exhibit resentment at finding their imaginary solitude invaded; and after a few spiteful slaps with their little paws, they would clinch and bite and claw each other in earnest. Usually they would break away from these clinches quite suddenly and resume their tramp; only, however, to reopen hostilities at an early date. Ben, although the smaller of the two, always seemed to get the better of his brother in the boxing bouts and wrestling matches. He entered into each with an earnestness that seemed to put the larger cub to flight; and yet in spite of the fact that as they grew older their battles seemed to grow more fierce, we thought nothing of the matter, but looked on and laughed at the Lilliputian struggles. But one day when we returned to camp we found George dead in the little trail that circled the stake to which they were tied, while Ben in his rounds stepped over the body of his dead brother at each turn. George’s face and nose were chewed beyond identification and he had been dead several hours.

Ben had now no companions except ourselves and one of the dogs which I had brought along and whose name was Jim; but in spite of this, or because of it, he grew more friendly and playful each day. He would coax Jim to come and romp with him and they would chase each other about until the dog was tired out. Ben seemed to be tireless and would never quit playing until chained up, or until the badgered dog turned on him in earnest. Even then the bear used not to give up hope immediately. After the first really angry snap from Jim, Ben would stand off a few feet and look apologetic. Then, if nothing more happened, he would approach the dog with a kind of experimental briskness; only, however, to turn a back somersault in his haste to get out of the reach of Jim’s teeth. A few minutes later, after Jim had lain down and was apparently asleep, Ben would steal up quietly and, very gently, with just the tip of his paw, would touch his old playfellow to find out if he really meant that the romp was off. And it was the deep growl that always greeted this last appeal that seemed to settle the matter in Ben’s mind. He would then keep out of Jim’s way until the latter felt like having another play.

Ben was very quick to learn and we only had to show him a few times to have him catch on to a new trick. He continued to enjoy cartwheeling down the old root, and one of the other things he took to with the most zest was a sort of juggling act with a ball. This trick, like the other, we discovered by accident, and then worked up into a more elaborate performance. We finally made him a large ball out of a length of rope, sewed it up in a gunny-sack to keep it from unwinding, and he would lie on his back and keep the thing spinning with his four feet by the hour.

Early in July the weather finally became settled. The new snow had melted away, the old snow banks were fast disappearing, the little open park on the side of the mountain above our camp was green with young grass and literally carpeted with flowers. So one morning we rounded up the ponies, saddled and packed them, put the cub into a grain sack, tied up the mouth, placed it on top of one of the packs, tied each of its four corners to one of the lash ropes that held the pack to the horse, and started into the unexplored Clearwater country in the heart of the Bitter Roots.

The horse selected for Ben’s mount was a little tan-colored beast who gave very little trouble on the trail, and whom we called Buckskin. We never had to lead him and he would always follow without watching. He would, when he found good feed, loiter behind until the pack train was nearly out of sight; but then, with a loud neigh, he would come charging along, jumping logs and dashing through thick bushes until the train was again caught up with. The first day’s travel was a dangerous one for the bear on account of the many low-hanging limbs. We were obliged to keep a constant watch lest one of these catch the sack and either sweep it from the pack or crush Ben to death inside it. But with care and good luck we got through safely and, after seven hours of travel, reaching an open side hill with plenty of feed for the horses and a clear cold spring, we went into camp.

While we were unpacking the horses an old trapper and prospector known as Old Jerry came along. He was one of the first men who made their way into that wilderness, and for many years he and his cabin on the Lockasaw Fork of the Clearwater were among the curiosities of the region. We had put Ben, still in his sack, on the ground while we got things settled for the night, and Old Jerry, seeing the sack moving, asked what we had in it. When he heard that it was a Black Bear cub he asked permission to turn it out and have a look at it and we told him to go ahead. After loosening the cord that closed the mouth, he took the sack by the two lower corners and gave it a shake, and out rolled Ben in his favorite toboganning posture of a fluffy ball. The cub seemed to think this a variation of the pine root game, and to the astonishment and delight of Old Jerry continued turning somersaults for ten or fifteen feet. Old Jerry is still alive, and to this day I never meet him that he does not speak of my performing cub.

The next day we cut a hole in the sack so that he could ride with his head out

The next day we again put Ben in the sack, but this time we cut a hole in the side of it, so that he could ride with his head out. For a while he was contented with this style of riding, but after some days he got to working on the sack until he was able to crawl through the hole. Then, as we found that he could keep his seat very nicely and would even, when his pony passed under a branch or leaning tree, dodge to one side of the pack and hang there until the danger was past, we adopted his amendment and from this time on never again put him in the sack when on the march. Instead, we arranged to give him a good flat pack to ride on. We put a roll of blankets on each side of the horse, close up to the horns of the pack saddle, and tied them in place. Then the space between was filled with small articles and a heavy canvas thrown over all and cinched in place. And on top of this Ben would pass the day. We tied his lead to the lash rope and he seemed perfectly content, and in fact appeared to enjoy the excitement of being jolted and shaken along through the timber and brush. It kept him on the jump to dodge the limbs and switches that were always threatening to unseat him, but in all of his four months’ riding through the mountains, I never saw him taken unawares. Nor was he ever thrown by a bucking horse. Sometimes he would get down from his seat on top of the pack and sit on the pony’s neck, holding by one paw to the front of the pack. Sometimes he would lie curled up as though asleep. But he was never caught off his guard, and his horse Buckskin seemed not to care how much he climbed about on its back.

Ben soon came to know his own horse, and after Buckskin was packed of a morning would run to the pony’s side and bawl to be lifted to his place on the pack. And once there he spent several minutes each morning inspecting the canvas and the ropes of his pack. Several times during the summer we were obliged to transfer Ben to another mount, but we had to be mighty careful in our arrangements, as we learned to our cost the first time we tried the experiment. This was on a day when we had a difficult mountain to descend, and we thought we would lighten Buckskin’s load by putting Ben on another horse that was carrying less weight. We got him settled on Baldy, as we called the other cayuse, without any trouble, and started out in the usual order; but just as we were on a particularly steep part of the hill, working our way down through a track of burned but still standing timber where the dry dirt and ashes were several inches deep and the dust and heat almost unbearable, there was a sudden commotion in the rear. We turned to see what was happening, and out of a cloud of dust and ashes Baldy bore frantically down upon us. His back was arched and with his head down between his fore-legs he was giving one of the most perfect exhibitions of the old-school style of bucking that any one ever saw.

Now it is useless to try to catch a bucking horse on a steep mountain side. The only thing to be done was to get out of the road and wait until the frightened animal either lost its footing and rolled to the foot of the declivity or reached the bottom right side up and stopped of its own accord. So we jumped to one side. But, just as Ben and his maddened steed enveloped in a cloud of ash dust swept past the balance of the now frightened horses, the pack hit against a dead tree whose root had nearly rotted away and the result completed the confusion. For the force of the shock first dislodged a large section of loosely hanging bark which came down with much noise, striking the head packhorse squarely across the back; and this was almost instantly followed by the falling of the old tree itself, which came down with a crash of breaking limbs and dead branches, and sent up a cloud of dust that completely hid Ben and his cavorting mount as they tore down the mountain. This was too much for the leading pony, who already stood shivering with excitement, and turning sharp to the right he shot off around the side of the mountain.

The other horses were quickly tied up, and while Spencer hurried after the runaway leader I took down through the burned timber after Baldy. Had the latter known how hard it had been to shake that same little bear from the limb of the old tree, he never would have spent so much energy in trying to buck him off the top of the pack. Ben had not looked in the least troubled as he was hurried past us, but had apparently felt himself complete master of the situation. He had, however, almost instantly disappeared from view, and soon even the sound of the bounding pony and the breaking of the dead branches as the pack hit them was no longer to be heard. The only things that marked their course were the deep imprints of the pony’s feet and the dust cloud that was settling down among the dead and blackened timber. Hurrying along this easily followed trail I at last reached the bottom of the gorge and found the tracks still leading up the opposite slope. But the horse had soon tired of the strenuous work of the steep ascent, and after a couple of hundred yards he had come to a standstill in a thick clump of trees and underbrush that had escaped the fire. Ben was still sitting in his place as unconcerned as though nothing had happened, but was liberally covered with ashes and did not seem to be in the best of humors. The pack did not appear to have slipped any and so I undid the lead rope and started back toward where the pack train had been left.

But when only a few yards on the way the pony suddenly bolted ahead, nearly knocking me down as he tried to get past. I brought him to a halt with a few sharp yanks on the rope, and then kept a careful eye to the rear to find out what it was that was startling him. I did not suspect Ben because none of the horses had ever shown the least fear of him, had always allowed him to run about them as they did the dogs, and no one of them had ever even kicked at him. Nevertheless I had noticed that the cub seemed grumpy when we put him on Baldy, and remembered that at first he had bawled and tried to get down. So I kept my eye on him. And the first thing I knew I saw him push out his upper lip, as all bears do when mad and out of humor, reach out stealthily one of his hind legs, and with a sharp stroke drive his catlike claws into Baldy’s rump. So here was the cause of all the trouble. Ben, objecting to the change of programme, had been taking it out on the horse. I at once tied him up so short that he could not reach the horse from the pack, and, although he was in a huff all that day, we had no further trouble with him. Only twice after this, however, did we mount him on any other horse but his own Buckskin.

Each day’s travel now brought us nearer to the main range, and one day we climbed the last ridge and camped on the border of one of the beautiful summit meadows where grow the camas, the shooting-star, the dog-tooth violet, the spring beauty, and other plants that the grizzlies love. The snow, by now, had disappeared, except the immense banks lying in the deep ravines on the north side of the upper peaks; the marshes were literally cut up by the tracks of deer, elk, and moose; while freshly dug holes and the enormous tracks of grizzlies told us plainly that we had reached the happy hunting ground. And now I began to learn from Ben much about the wonderful instincts of animals. Ben had never, before we captured him, had a mouthful of any food except his mother’s milk. Not only had the family just left the winter den in which the little cubs had been born, but the earth at that time, and for long after, had been covered deep with snow. So that there was nothing for even a grown bear to eat except some of the scant grasses that our horses found along the little open places on the sides of the hills, or the juices and soft slimy substances to be found beneath the bark of the mountain spruce trees in the spring and early summer.

But now, while camped near this mountain meadow, Ben would pull at his leash and even bawl to get loose, and I soon took to letting him go and to following him about to learn what it was that he wished to do. I was amazed to find that he knew every root and plant that the oldest bears knew of and fed upon in that particular range of mountains. He would work around by the hour, paying not the least attention to my presence; eat a bit of grass here, dig for a root there, and never once make a mistake. When he got something that I did not recognize, I would take it away from him and examine it to see what it was, and in this way I learned many kinds of roots that the bears feed on in their wild state. I have seen Ben dig a foot down into the ground and unearth a bulb that had not yet started to send out its shoot. Later, when the time came for the sarvis berries and huckleberries to ripen, he would go about pulling down bushes, searching for berries. And not once in the whole summer did I ever see him pull down a bush that was not a berry bush. This was the more remarkable because he would occasionally examine berry bushes on which there happened to be no berries at the time.

At our next camp we killed a small moose for meat, and the hide was used during the remainder of the trip as a cover for one of the packs. After a few days in the sun it dried as hard as a board and of course took the shape of the pack over which it had been used. And this skin box now became Ben’s home when in camp. It was placed on the ground, Ben’s picket pin driven near it, and he soon learned to raise up one edge and crawl inside. It was funny, when he had done some mischief in camp and we stamped our feet and took after him, to see him fly to the protection of his skin teepee, and raise the edge with one paw so quickly that there was no apparent pause in his flight. Then, safe inside, we would hear him strike the ground with his forefoot and utter angry “whoofs,” daring us to come any nearer. After a few minutes the edge of the hide would be lifted a few inches and a little gray nose would peep out to see if the coast was clear. If no notice was taken of him he would come back into camp, only to get into trouble again and be once more shooed back to cover.

Ben took great pride in this home of his and was an exemplary housekeeper, for no insect was ever permitted to dwell in the coarse hair. At first, when the hide was green, the flies would crowd into the hair and “blow,” or deposit their eggs. These Ben never allowed to hatch. As soon as he was off his pony he would get to work on his house, and with much sniffing and clawing, would dig out and eat every egg to be found. And not one ever escaped his keen little nose. Many times in the night we would hear him sniffing and snuffing away, searching out the fly-blows.

He grew to be more of a pet each day and he still juggled his ball of rope. Indeed, he got to be a great expert at this trick. He knew his own frying-pan from the others, and would set up a hungry bawl as soon as it was brought out. His food in camp was still flour and water, a little sugar, and condensed milk. This we fed him for more than a month, after which we cut out the milk and gave him just flour and water with a pinch of sugar. He did not care about meat and would eat his frying-pan food, or bread, in preference to deer or moose meat. Sometimes, when we killed a grizzly, we would bring in some of the meat and cook it for the dogs. This was the only meat that Ben would touch and very little of that. But although he occasionally consented to dine on bear meat, he showed unmistakable signs of temper whenever a new bear-skin was added to our growing pile of pelts. On these occasions, even before the hide was brought to camp, we would find him on our return in a towering rage. No amount of coaxing would induce him to take a romp. Not even for his only four-footed friend, Jim, would he come out of his huff. He would retreat beneath his moose-skin house, and we could hear him strike the ground, champ his jaws, and utter his blowing “whoofs.” I was never able to make out whether he resented or was made fearful by the killing of his kind, or whether it was the smell of the grizzlies, of which the Black Bear is more or less afraid, that affected him. He still remembered his mother, and on every occasion when he could get to our pile of bear hides he would dig out her skin—the only Black Bear skin in the lot—sniff it all over, and lie on it until dragged away. Indeed he seemed to mourn so much over it, even whimpering and howling every time the wind was in the right direction for him to smell it, that we finally had to keep this hide away from camp.

One day a little later on, as we were working our way toward the Montana side of the mountains, we arrived after a hard day’s work at the bank of a large stream flowing into the middle fork of the Clearwater River. As the stream to be forded was a swift and dangerous one, and as we had as high a mountain to climb on the other side as the one we had come down, we decided to go into camp and wait till morning to find a practicable ford. In this deep canyon there was no feed for the horses, and not even enough level ground on which to set up our tent. So the horses were tied up to the trees, supper was cooked and eaten, Ben’s “coop,” as we called his skin house, was placed under a tree, and then each of us rolled up in his blankets and was soon lulled to sleep by the roar of the water over the boulders that lined the river’s bed.

Ready for the start

We were up and ready for the start before it was fairly light in the deep canyon, and, on account of the dangerous work ahead of us, both in fording the river and in climbing the opposite mountain, we determined to put Ben on a pony that could be led. We were careful, however, to tie him up short enough to prevent any repetition of his former antics. I then mounted my riding horse, a good sure-footed one, and, with the lead rope of Ben’s horse in my hand, started for the other shore. The first two-thirds of the ford was not bad, but the last portion was deep and swift, the footing bad, and the going dangerous. However, by heading my horse diagonally down-stream, and thus going with the current, we succeeded in making the opposite bank in safety and waited for Spencer and Jack to follow. They got along equally well until near the bank on which I stood, when Spencer’s horse slipped on one of the smooth rocks and pitched his rider over his head into the swirling water. With a pole which I had cut in case it should be needed I managed to pull the water-soaked fellow out of the current, however, and when we had seen once more to the security of the packs we started on the steep climb ahead of us. There was not so much as an old game trail to mark our way, and the hill was so steep that we could only make headway by what are known as “switchbacks.” Our one desire now was to get up to where we could find grass for the horses, and a place level enough to pitch a tent and to unpack and give the ponies a few days in which to rest up.

The horse on which Ben had been mounted for the day was called Riley, and, as I have already said, we had selected him for his steady-going qualities and his reliability in leading. But just as we reached a particularly steep place about half-way up the mountain, Riley suddenly stopped and threw his weight back on the lead rope, which was lapped around the horn of my riding saddle, in such a way that the rope parted, the horse lost his balance, and falling backward landed, all four feet in the air, in a hole that had been left by an upturned root. We at once tied up the rest of the horses to prevent them from straying, and, cutting the cinch rope to Riley’s pack, rolled him over and got him to his feet again. We then led him to as level a spot as we could find and once more cinched on the saddle, and, while Spencer brought the various articles that made up the pack, I repacked the horse. All this time nobody had thought of Ben. In the excitement of rescuing the fallen horse he had been completely forgotten, and when Spencer lifted the pack cover, which was the last article of the reversed pack, he called out in consternation, “Here’s Ben, smashed as flat as a shingle.” When we rushed to examine him we found that he still breathed, but that was about all; and after I got the horse packed I wrapped him in my coat, placed him in a sack, and hanging this to the horn of my riding saddle, proceeded up the hill.

In the course of a couple of hours we reached another of those ideal camping spots, a summit marsh, and here we unpacked the horses, turned them loose, set up our tent, and then looked Ben over to see if any bones were broken. His breathing seemed a little stronger, so I put him in the sun at the foot of a large tree and in a few minutes he staggered to his feet. We always carried a can-full of sour dough to make bread with, and Ben was extravagantly fond of this repulsive mixture which he considered a dainty. I now offered him a spoonful of it, and as soon as the smell reached his nostrils he spruced up and began to lap it from the spoon; and from that time on his recovery was rapid. The next day he was as playful as ever and seemed none the worse for his close call.

Spencer had a great way, when we were about camp and Ben was not looking, of suddenly scuffling his feet on the ground and going “Whoof-whoof!” to frighten the cub. This would either send Ben flying up a tree or start him in a mad rush for his moose-skin house before he realized what the noise was. But one evening after this trick had been sprung on the cub several times, we came into camp well after dark, tired, hungry, and not thinking of Ben; and as Spencer passed a large tree there was a sudden and loud scuffling on the ground at his very heels and a couple of genuine “whoof-whoofs” that no one who had ever heard a bear could mistake. Spencer made a wild leap to one side and was well started on a second before he thought of Ben and realized that his pupil had learned a new trick and had incidentally evened things up with his master.

The acuteness of Ben’s senses was almost beyond belief. Nothing ever succeeded in approaching our camp without his knowing it; and this not only before we could hear a sound ourselves, but before we could have expected even his sharp ears or sensitive nostrils to detect anything. He would stand on his hind feet and listen, or get behind a tree and peer out with one eye, and at such times nothing would distract his attention from the approaching object. Moreover whenever he had one of these spells of suspicion something invariably appeared. It might prove to be a moose or a deer or an elk, but something would always finally walk out into view. He was far and away the best look-out that I ever saw. We used to amuse ourselves by trying to surprise him on our return to camp; but, come in as quietly as we might, and up the wind at that, we would always find him standing behind a tree, peering around its trunk with just one eye exposed, ready to climb in case the danger proved sufficient to warrant it. One day after we had crossed the divide of the Bitter Root range into Montana, where we had gone to replenish our food supply before starting on our return trip, we camped in a canyon through which flowed an excellent trout stream. We were still miles from any settlement and had no idea that there was another human being in the same county. I was lying in the shade of a large tree with Ben, as his habit was, lying beside me with his head on my breast, to all appearance fast asleep. Suddenly he roused, stood up on his hind legs, and looked up the canyon. I also looked but, seeing nothing, pulled the bear down beside me again. For a while he was quiet, but soon stood up again and gazed uneasily up the creek. As nothing appeared I again made him lie down; but there was plainly something on his mind, and at last, after nearly half an hour of these tactics, he jumped to his feet, pushed out his upper lip, and began the blowing sound that he always made when something did not suit him. And there, more than two hundred yards away and wading in the middle of the creek, was a man, fishing. In some way Ben had been aware of his approach long before he had rounded the turn that brought him into sight of our camp.

We remained in Montana long enough to visit the town of Missoula, lay in a supply of provisions, ship our bear-skins, buy a small dog-chain and collar for Ben, who was getting too large for his buck-skin thong, and rest the horses. Then, O’Brien having determined to try his fortune in the mining camps, Spencer and I turned our faces to the West and started back over the same three hundred miles of trackless mountains.

It was well into September when, after many happenings but no serious misadventures, we arrived at a small town on a branch of the Northern Pacific Railway one hundred and twenty-five miles from Spokane; and here we decided to ship not only our new store of furs, but our camp outfit as well. From here on our way lay through open farm lands, and we could find bed and board with the ranchers as we travelled.

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