jenny and johnnyJENNY (STANDING UP) AND JOHNNYIn the First Year of their Lives
These bears responded to kind treatment and were of cheerful disposition. I made it a point never to annoy or tease them. The grizzly bear is an exceedingly sensitive animal, and annoyances or cruelty make him cross. Once in addressing an audience concerning wild life I made the statement that bears would be good to us if we were good tothem. A small boy instantly asked, “"What do you do to be good to bears?” The health and the temper of bears, as well as of people, are easily ruined by improper food.
Young bear cubs are the most wide-awake and observing little people that I know of. Never have I seen a horse or dog who understood as readily or learned as rapidly as these two bears. One day I offered Johnny a saucer of milk. He was impatient to get it. Reaching up, he succeeded in spilling it, but he licked the saucer with satisfaction. On the second try he spilled only a part of the milk. On the third trial he clasped the saucer deftly in his two fore paws, lifted it upwards, turned his head back and poured the milk into his mouth.
When Johnny and Jenny were growing up, it seemed as if nothing unusual escaped them. A bright button, a flash of a ring, a white handkerchief, or an unusual movement or sound instantly caught their attention. They concentrated on each new object and endeavored to find out what it was. Having satisfied their curiosity or obtained full information about it, the next instant they were ready to concentrate on something else. But they remembered on second appearance anything whichhad especially interested them at any time. They learned through careful observation.
For a time they were not chained and had the freedom of the yard. Never have I seen two young animals more intense, more playful, or more energetic. They played alone, they mauled each other by the hour, and occasionally they scrapped. Sometimes we ran foot-races. From a scratch upon the ground, at the word "go," we would race down hill about one hundred and fifty yards. They were eager for these races and always ready to line up with me. They were so speedy that in every race they merrily turned around at least twice to see if I was coming, and in those days I was not slow.
Johnny and Jenny enjoyed playing with people, with any one who did not annoy them. Among the strangers who came was a man who made friends at once and had a good romp. When he left them and went to lunch, Johnny and Jenny followed and lay down near the door where he had disappeared. As he came out, they rose up and started another romp.
To attract my attention or to ask for something to eat, Johnny or Jenny would stand on hind legs and hold out fore paws like an orator. If I camearound the corner of the house a quarter of a mile away, they instantly stood on tiptoe and gesticulated with enthusiasm. They were the life of my home, and occasionally almost the death of it.
It was almost impossible to get these cubs filled up. They ate everything,—scraps from the table, rhubarb, dandelions, bitter sage, and bark,—but they were especially fond of apples. If I approached with meat and honey upon a plate but with apples or turnips in my pockets, they would ignore the plate and, clinching me, thrust their noses into my pockets to find the promised treat.
One August evening I brought in a cluster of wild raspberries for Johnny and Jenny. While still more than a hundred feet from the cabin, both bears leaped to their feet, scented the air, and came racing to meet me with more than their ordinary enthusiasm. No child of frontier parents could have shown more interest in a candy package on the father’s return from the city than did Johnny and Jenny in those berries.
A number of people were waiting in my cabin to see me. The little bears and I crowded in. I handed Jenny a berry-laden spray, and then one to Johnny, alternating until they were equally divided. Standing erect, each held the cluster under the left forearm by pressing it against the chest. When browsing in a raspberry-patch bears commonly bite off the tops of the canes together with the leaves and the berries. Johnny and Jenny ate more daintily. One berry was plucked off at a time with two front claws and dropped into the mouth. As one berry followed another, the lips were smacked, and the face and every movement made expressed immense satisfaction at the taste.
Every one crowded close to watch the performance. In the jostling one of the berry-laden canes fell to the floor. Both little bears grabbed for it at the same instant. They butted heads, lost their temper, and began to fight over it. I grabbed them by the collars and shook them.
“Why, Johnny and Jenny,” I said, “why do you do this? And such awful manners when we have company! What shall I do with you?”
They instantly stopped quarreling and even forgot the berries. For several seconds the little bears were embarrassed beyond all measure. They simply stared at the floor. Then suddenly each appeared to have the same idea. Standing erect, facing each other, they put fore paws on each other’s shoulders, and went "Ungh, ah, oooo." Plainly they were very sorry that they had misbehaved.
The manner in which these cubs received the berries, the fact that the first time they saw mushrooms they scented them at some distance and raced for them, also that on other occasions they went out of their way to get a plant ordinarily liked by the grizzly, led me to think that they inherited a taste for a number of things that grizzlies commonly eat.
One day we were out walking, when we came upon an army of ants. Without the least hesitation Johnny and Jenny followed along the line, licking them up. Upon reaching the stone behind which the ants were disappearing, Johnny thrust one fore claw under it and flung it aside. I was astonished at his strength.
I tried not to teach Johnny or Jenny any trick, but encouraged them to develop any original stunt or individuality of their own. One day Jenny was attracted by a big green fly that alighted on Johnny. She struck at it; the fly relighted and she struck again. With a little effort I succeeded in getting the bears to shoo flies off each other, and sometimes they were both busy at the same time. It made acomical show, especially when one was lazily lying down and the other was shooing with eagerness and solemnity.
Another activity I encouraged was the bear’s habit of holding the other around the neck with one fore paw and rubbing or scratching the back of the bear’s head with his other paw. In a short time both bears, while facing each other, would go through the performance at the same time.
Like other children Johnny and Jenny were fond of water and spent much time rolling and wading in the brook by their shed. This was a play they enjoyed. I showed interest in having them roll and splash in the liveliest manner possible.
Johnny seemed unusually interested in what I was doing one day and imitated in succession a number of my performances. I had dropped a penny on the floor, and then, stooping over, touched it with the end of one finger and moved it rapidly about. He rose on his hind feet, held up one claw, then, stooping, put this upon the penny and moved it rapidly about. Blowing the yolk out of an egg, I held up the empty shell before him, and then proceeded to move it rapidly about on the floor with the point of one finger. After licking theshell Johnny imitated my every act without crushing the shell.
While Jenny was asleep on the grass, I placed a large umbrella over her. When she opened her eyes, she at once commenced a quiet though frightened study of the strange thing. She closed one eye, turned her head to one side, and looked up into it; then, turning her head, closed the other eye for a look. A sudden puff of wind gave life to the umbrella and this in turn to Jenny. She made a desperate dash to escape the mysterious monster. The wind whirled the umbrella before her and she landed in it. Wrecking the umbrella, she fled in terror, bellowing with every jump. It took more than an hour to explain matters and assure Jenny that I had not been playing any tricks.
Scotch, my short-nosed collie, was with me when Johnny and Jenny were growing up. Johnny and Scotch were fond of each other, and though each was a little jealous of the master’s attention to the other, they got along admirably. Ofttimes they wrestled, and sometimes in their rough and tumble they played pretty roughly. As a climax often Scotch would aim for a neck-hold on Johnny and hammer him on the tip of his sensitive nose withone fore paw, while Johnny if possible would seize Scotch’s tail in his mouth and shut down on it with his needle-like teeth.
One of the most interesting pranks which they played on each other was over a bone. Scotch was enjoying this, when he discovered Johnny watching him eagerly. Plainly Johnny wanted that bone. After a little while Scotch leaped to his feet, looked off in the direction beyond Johnny and barked, as though some object of interest was coming from that direction. Then, picking up the bone, he walked away. As he passed in front of Johnny he dropped the bone and gave a bark. Going on a short distance, he barked once or twice more and lay down watching this pretended object in the distance. Johnny was more interested in the bone, but Scotch had dropped this a foot or two beyond his reach, chained as he was. For some time Johnny stood with his nose pointing at the bone, apparently thinking deeply as to how he might reach it. At last, stretching his chain to the utmost he reached out with his right arm. But he could not touch it. Although realizing that he probably could not reach it with the left arm, nevertheless he tried.
All this time Scotch was watching Johnny outof the corner of his eye and plainly enjoyed his failures. Johnny stood looking at the bone; Scotch continued looking at Johnny. Suddenly Johnny had an idea. He wheeled about, reached back with his hind foot and knocked the bone forward where he could pick it up with fore paws. Scotch, astonished, leaped to his feet and walked off without a bark or once looking back.
When Johnny and Jenny were small they often reminded me of a little boy and a little girl. Ofttimes they would follow me into my cabin. If I sat down they would come close, stand on hind legs, put fore paws on my knees, and look up at me. They would play with my watch-string, peep into my pockets, notice my pencil, or look at the buttons on my coat. Sometimes they would make a round of the room, scrutinize an unusual knot in a log, or stop to look for several seconds at the books in the shelves or the last magazine-cover. Then again, like children, they would walk round the room, tap with their fore paws here and there, and hurry on as children do. More than once they climbed up into my lap, twitched my ears, touched my nose, played with my hair, and finally fell off to sleep, one on each arm.
One day, while I was carrying Johnny in my arms, it occurred to me that he would enjoy a big rocking-chair. I placed him in a chair with one fore paw on each arm. He sat up like a little old man. As I started the chair rocking, he showed his suspicion and alarm by excitedly peering over, first at one rocker and then the other. Presently he calmed down and seemed to enjoy the movement. By and by he caught the swing and rocked himself. Suddenly the little old man and the rocker went over backward. Seeing his angry look as he struck the floor, I leaped upon the centre table. Getting on his feet, he struck a blow that barely missed me and then made lively bites at my ankles. He blamed me for the law of falling bodies. After a few seconds he was as playful as ever, remembering that I had never played any tricks on him, and realizing that I was not to blame for what had happened.
These little bears grew rapidly. At the age of seven months Johnny weighed approximately sixty pounds, and Jenny forty-six.
Numerous visitors and the increasing size of the cubs at last compelled me to chain them. The little bears were almost always on the move, either pacing back and forth or circling. Their long chainsoften got tangled with sticks, grass, or bushes. Sometimes the cubs showed impatience, but usually they carefully examined the chain, then, taking it in their fore paws, stepped this way and that and generally made the very move needed to extricate or unwind it. While doing this they appeared almost comical because of their serious and concentrated attention.
One morning Johnny climbed to the top of the pole fence to which he was chained. With happy, playful activity he galloped atop the pole to the end of the chain; then, like an engine, he reversed his direction without turning and went hippety-hop back again. This was a favorite exercise of Johnny’s, a game which I had encouraged; but this morning while having a beautiful time he tumbled off backward. The chain caught in a knot and Johnny found himself hung. Grizzly bears resent being hung by the neck. Johnny quickly kicked himself out of his collar. Finding himself free, and thinking himself abused, I suppose, he ran away. After three days this runaway boy concluded to come home. I saw him come out of the woods into an opening on the mountain-side. Even at a distance I could see that he no longer possessed thebig round stomach that he took away. I went to meet him. He was interested in the food question, and long before he reached me he was dancing about with outstretched arms.
In the midst of this performance it occurred to him that if he wanted anything to eat he must hurry to me. So he checked his first impulse and started to carry his second into instant effect. These incomplete proceedings interrupted and tripped each other three or four times and mixed themselves together. Apparently an entangled mental process followed my appearance. Though he tumbled about in comic confusion while trying to do two things at once, it was evident through it all that his central idea was to get something to eat.
One September we went camping out in Wild Basin, Johnny and Jenny racing along as happy as two boys. Sometimes they were ahead of me, sometimes behind; occasionally they stopped to wrestle and box. At night they lay close to me beside the camp-fire. Often I used one of them for a pillow, and more than once I awoke to find that they were using me for one.
jenny and johnny at age fourteenJENNY (ON THE LEFT) AND JOHNNYAt the Age of Fourteen
As we were climbing along the top of a moraine, a black bear and her two cubs came within perhapsthirty feet of us. They saw or scented us. The cubs and their mother bristled up and ran off terribly frightened, while Johnny and Jenny only a short distance in front of me, walked on, both ludicrously pretending that they had not seen the black bears. Surely they were touched with aristocracy!
The man in charge of my place neither understood nor sympathized with wide-awake and aggressive young grizzlies, and once, when I was away, he teased Johnny. The inevitable crash came and the man went to the hospital. On another occasion he set a pan of sour milk on the ground before Jenny. Bears learn to like sour milk, but Jenny had not learned and she sourly sniffed at it. The man roared, "Drink it," and kicked her in the ribs. Again we had to send for the ambulance.
At last it appeared best to send Johnny and Jenny to the Denver Zoo. Two years went by before I allowed myself the pleasure of visiting them. A number of other bears were with them in a large pen when I leaped in, calling “Hello, Johnny!” as I did so. Johnny jumped up fully awake, stood erect, extended both arms, and gave a few joyful grunts in the way of greeting. Back among the other bears stood Jenny on tiptoe, eagerly looking on.
I had gone into Wild Basin, hoping to see and to trail a grizzly. It was early November and the sun shone brightly on four inches of newly fallen snow; trailing conditions were excellent. If possible I wanted to get close to a bear and watch his ways for a day or two.
Just as I climbed above the last trees on the eastern slope of the Continental Divide, I saw a grizzly ambling along the other side of a narrow cañon, boldly outlined against the sky-line. I was so near that with my field-glasses I recognized him as “Old Timberline,” a bear with two right front toes missing. He was a silver-tip,—a nearly white old bear. For three days I followed Old Timberline through his home territory and camped on his trail at night. I had with me hatchet, kodak, field-glasses, and a package of food, but no gun.
The grizzly had disappeared by the time I crossed the cañon, but a clear line of tracks led westward. I followed them over the Divide and down into the woods on the other side. In a scattered tree-growth the tracks turned abruptly to the right, then led back eastward, close to the first line of tracks, as though Old Timberline had turned to meet any one who might be following him.
The most impressive thing I had early learned in trailing and studying the grizzly was that a wounded bear if trailed and harassed will sometimes conceal himself and lie in an ambush in wait for his pursuer. I never took a chance of walking into such danger. Whenever the trail passed a log, bowlder, or bushes that might conceal a bear, I turned aside and scouted the ambush for a side view before advancing further.
Old Timberline’s tracks showed that he had now and then risen on hind feet, listened, and turned to look back. He acted as though he knew I was following him, but this he had not yet discovered. All grizzlies are scouts of the first order; they are ever on guard. When at rest their senses do continuous sentinel duty, and when traveling they act exactly as though they believed some man was in pursuit.
Following along the trail and wondering what turn the grizzly would make next, I found where he had climbed upon a ledge in the edge of an opening, and had evidently stood for some seconds,looking and listening. From the ledge he had faced about and continued his course westward, heading for a spur on the summit of the Divide.
We were in what is now the southern end of the Rocky Mountain National Park. The big bear and myself were on one of the high sky-lines of the earth. We traversed a territory ten thousand to twelve thousand feet above sea-level, much of it above the limits of tree growth. There were long stretches of moorland, an occasional peak towering above us, and ridges long and short thrusting east and west, and cañons of varying width and depth were to be seen below us from the summit heights.
Crossing this spur of the Divide, the grizzly entered the woods. Here he spent so much time rolling logs about and tearing them open for grubs and ants that I nearly caught up with him. I watched him through the scattered trees from a rocky ledge until he moved on. This after a few minutes he did. As he came to an opening in the woods, I wondered whether he would go round it to the right or to the left. To my astonishment, without the least hesitation he sauntered across the opening, his head held low and swinging easily from side to side. But the instant he was screened by trees beyond, rising up,with fore paws resting against a tree, he peered cautiously out to see if he was being followed. When the next opening in the woods was reached, he went discreetly round it. You never know what a grizzly’s next move will be nor how to anticipate his actions.
Old Timberline started down into a cañon as though to descend a gully diagonally to the bottom. I hastily made a short cut and was ready to take his picture when he should come out at the lower end. But he never came. After waiting some time, I back-tracked and found he had gone only a few hundred feet down the gully, then returned to the top of the cañon and followed along the rim for a mile. He had then descended directly to the bottom of the cañon and gone straight up to the top on the other side.
Autumn is the time when bears most search the heights for food. Old Timberline’s trail headed again for the heights. When I next caught sight of him, he was digging above the tree-line, but as it was now nearly night, I went back a short distance into the woods and built a fire by the base of a cliff. Here all through the clear night I had a glorious view of the high peaks up among the cold stars.
Before daylight I left camp and climbed to the top of a treeless ridge, thinking that the bear might come along that way. In the course of time he appeared, about a quarter of a mile east of me. After standing and looking about for a few minutes, he started along the ridge, evidently planning to recross the Continental Divide near where he had crossed the day before. As I could not get close to him from this point, I concluded to follow his trail of the preceding night and if possible find out what he had been doing.
A short distance below him I found his trail and back-tracked to a place which showed that he had spent the night near the entrance of a recently dug den. I learned some weeks later that this den was where he hibernated that winter. A short distance farther on I came to where he had been digging when I saw him the evening before. Evidently he had been successful. A few drops of blood on the snow showed that he had captured some small animal, probably a cony. From this point I trailed Old Timberline forward and eastward, and near noon I caught a glimpse of him on the summit of the Divide.
While roaming above timber-line he did not takethe precaution to travel with his face in the wind. He could see toward every point of the compass. He was ambling easily along, but I knew that his senses were wide awake—that his sentinel nose never slept and that his ears never ceased to hear. Climbing to the very summit of a snow-covered ridge, he lay down with his back to the wind. Evidently he depended upon the wind to carry the warning scent of any danger behind him, while he was on the lookout for anything in front of him. Nothing could approach nearer than half a mile without his knowing it. He looked this way and that. After only a short rest he arose and started on again.
I hoped that some time I should be able to photograph Old Timberline at twenty-five or thirty feet. But at all times, too, I was more eager to watch him, to see what he was eating, where he went, and what he did. I was constantly trying to get as close as possible. Of course I had ever to keep in mind that he must not see, hear, nor scent me. I had to be particularly careful to prevent his scenting me. Often in hastening to reach a point of vantage I had to stop, note the topography, and change my direction, because a wind-current up anunsuspected cañon before me might carry news of my presence to the bear.
Near mountain-tops the wind is deflected this way and that by ridges and cañons. In a small area the prevailing west wind may be a north wind, and a short distance farther on it may blow from the southwest. Often, when the bear was somewhere in a cañon, I climbed entirely out of it, to avoid the likelihood of being scented, and scurried ahead on a plateau.
Usually I followed in the bear’s trail, but sometimes I made short cuts. So long as Old Timberline remained on the moorland summit of this treeless ridge, I could not get close to him. But when he arose and started down the ridge, I hurried down the slope, hoping to get ahead and hide in a place of concealment near which he might pass. I kept out of sight in the woods and hastened forward for two miles, then climbed up and hid in a rock-slide on the rim of the ridge.
By and by I saw Old Timberline coming. When within five hundred feet of me he stopped and dug energetically. Buckets of earth flew behind, and occasionally a huge stone was torn out and hurled with one paw to the right or left. Once he stoppeddigging, rose on hind feet, and looked all around as though he felt that some one was slipping up on him. He dug for a few minutes longer and then again stood up and sniffed the air. Not satisfied, he walked quickly to a ledge from which he could see down the slope to the woods. Discovering nothing suspicious, he returned to his digging, stepping in his former footprints. He uncovered something in its nest, and through my glasses I saw him strike right and left and then rush out in pursuit of it. After nosing about in the hole where he had been digging, he started off again. He went directly to the ledge, walking in his former well-tracked trail, then descended the steep eastern slope of the Divide toward the woods. I hurried to the ledge from which he had surveyed the surroundings and watched him.
Arriving at a steep incline on the snowy slope, Old Timberline sat down on his haunches and coasted. A grizzly bear coasting on the Continental Divide! How merrily he went, leaning forward with his paws on his knees! At one place he plunged over a snowy ledge and dropped four or five feet. He threw up both fore paws with sheer joy. Soon he found himself exceeding the speed-limit. Looking back over one shoulder, and reaching out his paw behind him, he put on brakes; but as this did not check him sufficiently, he whirled about and slid flat on his stomach, digging in with both fingers and toes until he slowed down.
Then, sitting up on his haunches again, he set himself in motion by pushing along with rapid backward strokes of both fore paws. He coasted on toward the bottom. In going down a steep pitch of one hundred feet or more he either quite lost control of himself or let go from sheer enthusiasm. He rolled, tumbled, and slid recklessly along. Reaching the bottom, he rose on hind feet, looked about him for a few seconds, and then climbed halfway up the course for another coast. At the end of this merry sliding he landed on an open flat in the edge of the woods.
As it was nearly dark and I should not be able to see or follow the bear much longer, I concluded to roll a rock from the ledge down near him. Twice I had noticed that he had paid no attention to rocks that broke loose above and rolled near him. But he heard this rock start and rose up to look at it. It stopped a few yards from him. He sniffed the air with nose pointing toward it and then went up andsmelled it. Rearing up instantly, he looked intently toward the mountain-top where I was hidden. After two or three seconds of thought he turned and ran. Evidently the stone had carried my scent to him. It was useless to follow him in the night.
The next morning I left camp and followed Old Timberline’s trail through the woods. He had run for nearly ten miles almost straight south until coming to a small stream. Then for some distance he concealed, involved, and confused his trail with a cleverness that I have never seen equaled. Most animals realize that they leave a scent which enables other animals to follow them, but the grizzly is the only animal that I know who appears to be fully aware that he is leaving telltale tracks. He will make unthought-of turns and doublings to walk where his tracks will not show, and also tramples about to leave a confusion of tracks where they do show.
Arriving at the stream, the bear crossed on a fallen log and from the end of this leaped into a bushy growth beyond. I made a détour, thinking to find his tracks on the other side of the bushes, and I threw stones into the bushes, not caring to go into them. Both tracks and grizzly seemed to havevanished. I went down stream just outside the bushes bordering it, expecting every instant to find the grizzly’s tracks, but not finding them. Then I returned to the log on which he had crossed the stream, and from which he had leaped into the bushes.
Examining the tracks carefully, I now discovered what I had before overlooked. After leaping into the bushes the bear had faced about and leaped back to the log, stepping carefully into his former tracks. From the log he had entered the water and waded up stream for a quarter of a mile. Of course not a track showed. At a good place for concealing his trail he had leaped out of the water into a clump of willows on the north bank. From the willows he made another long leap into the snow and then started back northward, alongside his ten-mile trail and one hundred feet from it, as though intending to return to the place where I had rolled the stone down the slope near him.
I did not discover all this at once, however. In my search for his trail I went up stream on the north side and passed, without noticing, the crushed willows into which he had leaped. Crossing to where the bank was higher, I started back downstream on the other side, and in doing so chanced to look across and see the crushed clump of willows. But it took me hours to untangle this involved trail.
When I had followed the tracks northward for more than a mile, the trail vanished in a snowless place. Apparently the grizzly had planned in advance to use this bare place, because the moves he made in it were those most likely to bewilder the pursuer. He did three things which are always more or less confusing and even bewildering to the pursuer, be he man or dog. He changed his direction, he left no tracks, and he crossed his former trail, thereby mixing the scents of the two. He confused the nose, left no record for the eye, and broke the general direction.
Unable to determine the course the bear had taken across this trackless place, I walked round it, keeping all the time in the snow. When more than halfway round I came upon his tracks leaving the bare place. Here he had changed his direction of travel abruptly from north to east, crossed his former trail, gone on a few yards farther, and then abruptly changed from east to north.
I hurried along his tracks. After a few miles Isaw where perhaps the night before he had eaten part of the carcass of a bighorn. To judge from tooth marks, the sheep had been killed by wolves. The trail continued in general northward, parallel to the summit and a little below it. As I followed, the tracks approached timber-line, the trees being scattered and the country quite open.
Suddenly the trail broke off to the right for five or six hundred feet into the woods, as though Old Timberline had remembered an acquaintance whom he must see again. He had hustled along straight for a much-clawed Engelmann spruce, a tree with bear-claw and tooth marks of many dates, though none were recent. Old Timberline, apparently, had smelled the base of the tree and then risen up and sniffed the bark as high as his nose could reach. He had neither bitten nor clawed. Then he had gone to two near-by trees, each of which had had chunks bitten or torn out, and here smelled about.
Retracing his tracks to where the trail had turned off abruptly, the bear resumed his general direction northward. When he stopped on a ridge and began digging, I hurried across a narrow neck of woods and crept up as close as I dared. A wagon-load of dirt and stones had been piled up. While I watched the digging, a woodchuck rushed out, only to be overtaken and seized by the bear, who, having finished his meal, shuffled on out of sight.
I followed the trail through woods, groves, and openings. After an hour or more without seeing the grizzly, I climbed a cliff, hoping to get a glimpse of him on some ridge ahead. I could see his line of tracks crossing a low ridge beyond and felt that he might still be an hour or so in the lead. But, in descending from the cliff, I chanced to look back along my trail. Just at that moment the bear came out of the woods behind me. He was trailing me!
I do not know how he discovered that I was following him. He may have seen or scented me. Anyway, instead of coming directly back and thus exposing himself, he had very nearly carried out his well-planned surprise when I discovered him. I found out afterwards that he had left his trail far ahead, turning and walking back in his own footprints for a distance, and trampling this stretch a number of times, and that he had then leaped into scrubby timber and made off on the side where his tracks did not show in passing along the trampledtrail. He had confused his trail where he started to circle back, so as not to be noticed, and slipped in around behind me.
But after discovering the grizzly on my trail I went slowly along as though I was unaware of his near presence, turning in screened places to look back. He followed within three hundred feet of me. When I stopped he stopped. He occasionally watched me from behind bushes, a tree, or a bowlder. It gave me a strange feeling to have this big beast following and watching me so closely and cautiously. But I was not alarmed.
I concluded to turn tables on him. On crossing a ridge where I was out of sight, I turned to the right and ran for nearly a mile. Then, circling back into our old trail behind the bear, I traveled serenely along, imagining that he was far ahead. I was suddenly startled to see a movement of the grizzly’s shadow from behind a bowlder near the trail, only three hundred feet ahead. He was in ambush, waiting for me! At the place where I left the trail to circle behind him, he had stopped and evidently surmised my movements. Turning in his tracks, he had come a short distance back on the trail and lain down behind the bowlder to wait for me.
I went on a few steps after discovering the grizzly, and he moved to keep out of sight. I edged toward a tall spruce, which I planned to climb if he charged, feeling safe in the knowledge that grizzlies cannot climb trees. Pausing by the spruce, I could see his silver-gray fur as he peered at me from behind the bowlder, and as I moved farther away I heard him snapping his jaws and snarling as though in anger at being outwitted.
Just what he would have done had I walked into his ambush can only be guessed. Hunters trailing a wounded grizzly have been ambushed and killed. But this grizzly had not even been shot at nor harassed.
Generally, when a grizzly discovers that he is followed, or even if he only thinks himself followed, he at once hurries off to some other part of his territory, as this one did after I rolled the stone. But Old Timberline on finding himself followed slipped round to follow me. Often a grizzly, if he feels he is not yet seen,—that his move is unsuspected,—will slip round to follow those who are trailing him. But in no other case that I know of has a bear lingered after he realized that he was seen. After Old Timberline discovered that I had circledbehind him, he knew that I knew where he was and what he was doing.
But instead of running away he came back along the trail to await my coming. What were his intentions? Did he intend to assault me, or was he overcome with curiosity because of my unusual actions and trying to discover what they were all about? I do not know. I concluded it best not to follow him farther, nor did I wish to travel that night with this crafty, soft-footed fellow in the woods. Going a short distance down among the trees, I built a rousing fire. Between it and a cliff I spent the night, satisfied that I had had adventure enough for one outing.
Trailing is adventurous. Many of the best lessons of woodcraft that I have learned, several of the greatest and most beneficial outings that I have had, were those during which I followed, sometimes day and night, that master of strategy, the grizzly bear. A few times in trailing the grizzly I have outwitted him, but more frequently he has outwitted me. Every grizzly has speed, skill, and endurance. He has mental capacity and often shows astounding plan, caution, courage, and audacity.
Trailing without a gun is red-blooded life, scouting of the most exacting and manly order. The trailer loses himself in his part in the primeval play of the wilderness. It is doubtful if any other experience is as educational as the trailing of the grizzly bear.
One of the best play-exhibitions that I have ever enjoyed was that of a grizzly juggling with an eight-foot log in a mountain stream. In examining the glaciation of the Continental Divide, five or six miles west of Long’s Peak, I came out of the woods into a little meadow by the East Inlet of Grand Lake, where I saw the grizzly and the log, rolling and tumbling in the water. The log bobbed and plunged about as the bear struggled with it in the swift current.
The big, shaggy grizzly, wild and gray, fitted into the wild mountain scene. A peak bristling with ledges and dotted with snow towered in the blue sky behind. Down the steep incline of the peak the clear, cold stream came with subdued roar, as it rushed the inclines and the rapids of its solid rock-cut channel. The opposite wall of the cañon was of glacier-polished granite, while behind me the wall rose steeply, covered with a crowded growth of towering spruce. It was a grand wilderness playground.
As I watched from the edge of the woods, the grizzly once hugged the log between fore paws, stood it on end in the water, and then tried to climb it. His weight caused it to tip him over. The log escaped from the bear and started to float away, but he was after it with a rush.
Another time he lay across it and splashed about like a boy on a pole trying to learn to swim. Getting too far forward, he rolled under the log. Struggling on his back, he grasped it between all four feet. Then he took it beneath one forearm and suddenly ducked it into deep water. It shot out into the middle of the stream with the bear splashing wildly in pursuit. At last he succeeded in securing a good hold with his teeth and was tugging the log toward the bank when he saw a stick floating down stream. As he turned to seize it, his wave pushed the stick farther away and at the same time gave the log a start down stream. Turning from the stick, he hurried to seize the log. Pushing it end on against the rocky bank, and pressing against it with one fore paw, he looked over his shoulder as though intending to seize the stick. But this was out of reach, hurrying down stream.
catching black bear cubsCATCHING BLACK BEAR CUBS
Next he appeared to be trying to walk the log. When he was almost on it, the log rolled and with a splash the grizzly fell into the water on his side. For a second he lost sight of the log, or pretended that he had, and took swift glances this way and that. As it bumped into his up-stream side, he seized it with feigned surprise. Then he took it to the bank in shallow water, mauling it about, biting and gnawing at it. As the log rolled from side to side, he swam around it, batting it and pushing it under.
A number of Clarke nutcrackers and magpies had collected and in astonishment watched the exhibition. Ordinarily a nutcracker is noisy in autumn, screaming and chuckling loudly and harshly. But these were motionless and silent as they watched. A passing magpie whirled aside to see the show, and was just alighting on the bank when the bear splashed water wildly with a sweeping stroke at the log. With confused haste the magpie retreated. Taking a stand on a solitary spruce which leaned over the bank, he watched the scene without a move. The other birds, equally intent, watched from a high-water log-jam among large near-by bowlders.
At last the grizzly secured the log just under water. Standing upon it with hind feet, he reached down with both fore paws and went through an up-and-down motion like a washerwoman. Then he left the log and walked along the bank, keeping watch of it as it floated slowly down stream. It gradually pulled off from the bank. When it was about ten feet away he leaped playfully after it with feet outspread like those of a flying squirrel. Letting it drift again, he watched it intently as it was swept into the current and floated away in midstream. By swimming and wading he kept alongside for some distance, then put one fore paw upon it. Perhaps he was about to start something new, but just then he scented something over his right shoulder.
Releasing the log, he climbed upon a bowlder that projected above the water. On hind feet, interested and curious, he stood gazing for some seconds. Evidently desiring more information, he started ashore and never looked back at the log hurrying away down the rapids.
I found afterwards that the grizzly had rolled the log into the water a short distance up stream from where I came upon him. The log was a soundsection of a spruce that had broken off when the tree fell among bowlders and lay on the bank a few feet from the water. The bear had come down stream, and in passing ten or twelve feet from the log had turned aside to it. He may have rolled it over to see if there were insects beneath, but, accidentally or intentionally, he had rolled it into the water.
This play of a grizzly with an object is much less common than their other play, such as coasting. Several times I have seen grizzlies lying on their stomachs sliding down a steep, smooth, grassy slope, or trying to start themselves on a slope that was not steep enough for coasting. A grizzly pauses to play frequently. A mother and cubs often play together in the water, with apparent enjoyment for all. Many a beaver pond is a favorite swimming-hole for the cubs and a wading-place for the older bears.
I watched an old grizzly romping in the mud of a shallow pond. After rolling and wallowing about, until his fur coat was covered with mud thick enough to form a plaster cast, he grew energetic. He ran for the shore with all speed, as though hunters and dogs were upon him. Once out of the mud,he turned and raced back through the pond, galloping all the way across and sending the mud and water flying in exciting fashion. After a momentary pause he again galloped through the mud and water to the other side. The pond was half filled with sediment, and evidently the mud was more than a foot deep.
One autumn while camping on the Continental Divide near the head of Forest Cañon, I discovered that a grizzly will sometimes climb a slope for the purpose of coasting. While I was watching a flock of bighorn sheep, a grizzly came to the summit of a near-by mountain. I saw him as he reached the top and supposed he was crossing to the other side. He shuffled along apparently with definite plans in mind. But he was not going over the top. He headed straight for an out-jutting ridge where the wind-blown snow from the summit had formed a cornice at the top of its steep snowy slope.
The grizzly hurled himself headlong upon the snow cornice with fore paws outstretched. The cornice gave way beneath him. The snow slid and snow-dust whirled about him. I had glimpses of him looking like a fur-robed Eskimo falling down a snowy precipice in a blizzard. As the snow-dustcleared, it revealed the grizzly seated in a moving mass of snow, coasting swiftly down.
The snow went to pieces on a nearly hidden rock-point and spilled the coaster. He rolled, then slid, first on his stomach head first, then on his back feet first, but collected himself at the bottom. Rising and bearing away from the deep snow, he climbed up again and appeared to look with interest at the gully he had made in the slope as he coasted and also at the scattered marks where he was spilled.
Just beneath the cornice he waded into the snow. He shook himself, kicked the snow, went through swimming motions but still did not start to slide. The slope was not steep enough. Wallowing down a short distance, he rose, then rolled forward over and over—cartwheeled. After three or four turns he began to slide. This stirred up so much snow-dust that I could get only dim glimpses of him and could not tell whether he was sliding head first or tail first. On the thin snow at the bottom the dust-fog cleared, and the grizzly rolled over and over down the slope like a log. Getting on his feet, he walked away and disappeared behind the storm-battered trees at timber-line.
I took pains to track the bear. Down in the woods, more than three miles from his coasting-place, he had made a meal the evening before off the smelly old carcass of a deer. He spent the night by the bones. In the morning he climbed to the top of a ridge that rose above the tree-tops. His tracks showed that he had walked about here and stopped at three or four places to look down on scenes below.
Then he had followed his tracks back close to where he had spent the night. Here he had tramped about in the snow as though having nothing in particular to do. But a coyote was trying to find something on the bones and the bear may have been threatening him. He finally started off, plainly with coasting in his mind, for without stopping he went directly to the snow cornice. From tracks which I saw in this and other cañons I realized that a grizzly sometimes goes out of his way in order to coast down steep snowy places.
A grizzly that I was following one November morning was evidently well fed, for he traveled slowly along with apparently nothing to do. Descending the ridge on which he had been walking, he came upon the side of a steep southern slope,across the ravine from where I had paused to watch him. Occasionally a bush or weed sprang up as the warm sun released it from its little burden of snow. If it was close to him, he reached out one paw and stroked or boxed it daintily and playfully as a kitten; or, if a few feet away, he stopped, turned his head to one side, and looked at it with lazy, curious interest. He turned for a better glimpse of a tall willow springing up as if inviting him to play and appeared just ready to respond when he caught sight of his moving dark-blue shadow against the white slope. Instantly, reaching out lightly with one fore paw, he commenced to play with the shadow. As it dodged, he tried to reach it with the other paw, then stopped to look at it. He sat down and watched it intently, ready to strike it if it moved; he pushed his nose closer to it. Keeping his eyes on the shadow, with a sudden leap he threw both fore paws forward and brought them down where the shadow had been before his move. For several seconds he leaped and struck right and left in his vain efforts to catch it. Then, seated on his haunches, he watched the shadow out of one eye. He turned his head, possibly wondering what the shadow would do. He seemed surprisedto find that it was not behind him, and turned back quickly to see where it was. Did the grizzly know what this shadow-thing was, and was all this just jolly make-believe? In any case, he was playing and playing merrily. When I first watched him he reminded me of a kitten, but the longer he played the more his actions resembled those of a puppy and finally those of dog.
As the grizzly backed slowly down the slope, he watched the shadow following him, and made a feint as though about to grab it, but stopped. Slowly he started after the shadow up the slope, then pursued it with a rush. Then, backing away along the side of the slope, he watched the shadow out of the corner of his eye. He suddenly stopped and stood as though thinking; then wheeled, faced down the slope, and looked off into the distance. After a second he slowly turned his head and looked over first one shoulder, then the other, for the shadow. Finally, rising, he looked between his legs.
Leisurely he lay down with head toward the sun and put fore paws over his eyes as though starting a game of hide-and-seek and expected the shadow to hide. But this may have been to shut the dazzling sun-glare from his eyes, for presently he moved his head to one side to watch the shadow.
Abruptly he ended, rose to his feet, and started off briskly in the direction he was traveling in when the blue shadow upon the snow coaxed him to stop and play.
Generally the grizzly plays alone. Most animals play with one or many others of their species. Three or four times I have seen a lone grizzly playing much after the manner of a dog—playing with himself as it were. He ran round and round in a small circle, alternating this with leaping into the air and dodging about, and rolling on his back with feet waving in the air. He ended the play with a lively and enthusiastic chase of his tail.
The two cubs that I raised were always eager for play. They played with each other, they were ready at all times to play with me, and occasionally one of them played with my dog Scotch. Grizzlies in captivity will sometimes play with their keeper. Perhaps they would do so more frequently if they liked the keeper. Sometimes pet bears will play with strangers. They are ready to seize an opportunity for brief play and in this, as with the man who was impersonating bears, theyoften show a sense of humor; and they sometimes imitate or mock the actions of some other animal.
An outing in northwestern Arizona gave me fresh glimpses into grizzly life, although I had not expected to see grizzlies. I found them apparently at home with heat and sand in the edge of a desert. Perhaps these bears were only visitors. They were not dwarfed by the harsh conditions but appeared similar to grizzlies of other localities.
I was sheltered to the leeward of a rock-outcrop waiting for a roaring desert windstorm to subside. As I looked off into the dusty distance, a brown, dust-covered grizzly came into view. He climbed up and sat down upon a large sand-dune and looked around evidently glad that things were clearing. He watched closely a dust spiral which came spinning across the clear sky. As it passed close to him, a withered cactus-lobe dropped from it upon the dune, turned over once or twice, and then rolled down the slope. The grizzly took after it, striking out with right fore paw; but, missing, was upon it with a plunge. Picking the cactus up cautiously in his teeth, he held it for a second, then with a jerk of his head tossed it into the air andpursued it. The sloping sand-dune caved and slid beneath him. Forgetting the cactus, he leaped along the crumbling sand and made a number of lunges, each followed by a dive and an abrupt stop on the sand. He ran in a circle round the crest of the dune several times, occasionally coming to a sudden stop. Then, sliding down the dune, suddenly stopped his play.
He stood still at the foot of the dune for several seconds and looked off into the distance. He was debating what he should do next. Off he started slowly toward the horizon. Into the edge of the mysterious landscape of a mirage he walked and vanished. I thought him lost and rose to move on, when a purple shadowy landscape pushed up into the sky and in this strange, dim scene a giant shadowy grizzly raced and played.
Play is a common habit of animals. Darwin, Wallace, and others have emphasized its importance as a progressive evolutionary factor in the survival of the fittest. Play is rest and relaxation; it gives power and proficiency; it stimulates the brain to the highest pitch of keenness and arouses all the faculties to be eager and at their best; it develops the individual. Play not only is a profoundadvantage to the player, but is necessary to the requirements of an efficient life.
All alert animals freshen themselves with play. The human race is beginning to do intelligently what it once did instinctively; it is relearning the lost art, the triumphant habit, of play.
In April, 1904, “Old Mose,” an outlaw grizzly, was killed on Black Mountain, Colorado. For thirty-five years he had kept up his cattle-killing depredations. During this time he was often seen and constantly hunted, and numerous attempts were made to trap him. His home territory was about seventy-five miles in diameter and lay across the Continental Divide. He regularly killed cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs in this territory, and, so far as known, did not leave this region even briefly. Two missing toes on his left hind foot were the means of identifying his track.
Old Mose killed at least five men and eight hundred cattle, together with dozens of colts and other live stock. His damage must have exceeded thirty thousand dollars. Often he smashed the fences that were in his way. He had a fiendish habit of slipping up on campers or prospectors, then rushing into their camp with a roar, and he evidently enjoyedthe stampedes thus caused. On these occasions he made no attempt to attack. Although he slaughtered stock to excess, he never went out and attacked people. The five men whom he killed were men who had cornered him and were attempting to kill him.
Rarely do grizzlies kill cattle or big game. Old Mose was an exception. None of the other grizzlies in the surrounding mountains killed live stock. During his last years Old Mose was followed at a distance by a “cinnamon” bear of large size. This grizzly had nothing to do with the killing, never associated with Old Mose, but simply fed on the abundance which he left behind.
A heavy price on his head led the most skillful hunters and trappers to try for Old Mose. Three of the best hunters were killed by him. All trapping schemes failed; so, too, did attempts to poison. Finally he was cornered by a pack of dogs, and the hunter ended his career with the eighth shot.
Though Old Mose was forty or more years of age when killed, his teeth were sound, his fur was in good condition, and he had every appearance of being in excellent health. He was apparently good for several years more of vigorous life.
Trapping the grizzly has become a non-essential occupation. It is a waste of energy, because rarely successful. Now and then a bear is trapped, but it is usually a young bear of but little experience, a mother who is trying to protect her cubs, or a bear whose momentary curiosity caused him to forget his customary caution.
Formerly it was not difficult to trap a grizzly. But he quickly learned to avoid the menace of traps. The bear sees through all the camouflage of the trapper. Deodorized and concealed traps, traps near the bait and far from it, traps placed singly and in clusters—these, and even the slender concealed string of a spring gun, he usually detects and avoids.
I spent a number of days with a trapper who felt certain that he would secure the thousand-dollar reward for the capture of an outlaw cattle-killing grizzly. Earlier than usual the cattlemen drove the cattle from the summer range. The trapper took an old cow to a selected spot near the end of a gulch, picketed her, and surrounded her with spring guns and traps. The outer line of defense consisted of three spring guns which guarded three avenues of approach to the cow. The strings tothese guns were of silk line stretched over bushes and tall grass so as to be inconspicuous. As the bear would be likely to seize the cow’s head or neck, a trap was set between her head and a large bowlder near by. There was a trap on each side of the cow and one behind her.
The first night there was a light fall of snow, but no bear. But the second night he came. Tracks showed that he scented or heard the cow from afar—more than a mile away—and came straight for her. He stopped within two feet of the silk line and walked cautiously round it until he completed the circuit. But there was no opening. He then leaped the line—something I had never before heard of a bear doing. He approached the cow, then walked round her; he went close to the traps and detected just where each one was concealed. Then, between the trap in front and the one on the left, he seized and killed the cow. After feeding on her he dragged the carcass across two traps and left it. Leaping the line again, he went off down stream in the gulch.
The trapper reset the traps the following day and placed an additional one just inside the line, at the point where the grizzly had leaped over it.Then, some distance down stream, he strung a line across the gulch and attached a spring gun to one end of the line.
The grizzly returned that night, coming down the gulch. After walking the lines around the carcass, and apparently having detected the new trap inside, he leaped the line at another point. He avoided the traps and ate about half the remainder of the carcass. Then he piled a few dead logs on what was left, leaped the line again, and went down the gulch. He stopped within ten or twelve feet of the line here and followed it along to where it connected with the rifle on the side of the gulch. Walking round the rifle, he went back into the gulch and followed his trail of the preceding night.
The trapper, amazed, vowed vengeance. He made haste and built a log pen around the remains of the carcass. He then set two traps in the entrance of the pen, one in front of the entrance and one inside the pen.
The second night following, the bear returned, leaped over the line, and cautiously approached the pen. The bowlder formed part of the rear end of this. Climbing on top of the bowlder, the bear tore off the upper part of the pen, which rested on thebowlder, and then, from the bowlder, without getting into the pen, reached down and dragged up the carcass. In doing this one of the poles which had been torn out of place and thrown to one side struck the top of a stump, turned over, and fell across the line attached to a spring gun. This fired its waiting shot. Then the grizzly did this astounding thing. He appears to have been on top of the bowlder when the shot was fired, but he descended, made his way to the smelly gun, and then examined it, the snow being tracked up in front of it. Returning to the carcass, he dragged it off the bowlder and ate the last mouthful. Leaving the bones where they lay, he walked across the line where the pole rested on it and went off up the gulch.
A grizzly is wary for the preservation of his life. It is generally a triumph of stalking to get within short range of him. His senses detect danger afar. He will sometimes hear the stealthy approach of a hunter at the distance of a quarter of a mile, and under favorable conditions he will scent a man at a distance of a mile or more. Being ever on guard, and generally in a place where he can scout with scent, sight, or hearing, he usually manages tokeep out of range or under cover. It is not uncommon for two or three hunters in different parts of bear territory, searching with field-glasses, watching from high places, taking advantage of the wind, and moving silently, to spend a week without even seeing a bear, although bears were about. Many times, even when trailed with dogs, through his brains, his endurance, and his ability to move rapidly over rough territory, the grizzly escapes being cornered.
I have often been in bear territory for days without seeing one. Then again I have seen two or more in a few hours. Frequently I have been able to watch a grizzly at moderately short range for an hour or longer. I was chiefly concerned to get near enough to study his actions, and not to take a shot, as I trailed without a gun. But many a day I have failed to see a grizzly, though I searched carefully in a territory which I knew and where the habits of the individual bears were somewhat known to me.
A grizzly territory is covered with a web of dim trails over which he usually travels. If surprised, the grizzly turns and retreats over the trail on which he was advancing. A bear’s trail, close behind him, is a dangerous place to be in if he does retreat.Many a hunter, a few feet off the trail, has had the alarmed bear rush by without noticing him, while others, who were directly on the trail, have been run over or assailed by the bear.
When in a trap or cornered, a wounded grizzly sometimes feigns death. Apparently, when he considers his situation desperate, he sees in this method the possibility of throwing his assailant off his guard. A trapper once invited me to go the rounds with him along his string of traps. In one of these was a young grizzly. At short range the hunter fired two shots and the bear fell in a heap.
We advanced within a few feet and saw that the bear was bleeding freely, but halted “to be sure he was dead.” “I make it a point,” said the hunter, “to wait until a bear dies before I start skinning him. Once I made the mistake of putting down my rifle and starting to skin the bear before he was dead.”
We stepped forward, and the hunter prodded the bear with the end of the rifle-barrel. Like a jumping-jack the bear sprang at the hunter, knocked him over backwards, tore a hole through his clothing, and ripped a bad wound in his skin on the thigh. Fortunately the chain and clog on the trap held the bear from following up his assault.
On another occasion I was with a party of mounted hunters with dogs who chased a grizzly out of his territory and cornered him in a deep box cañon. He was at bay and the excited dogs were harrying him as we came up. He stood in the end of the cañon, facing out, evidently watching for an opportunity to escape. He discouraged all attacks by his swift and cool-headed defense. If a bush stirred behind he made a feint to strike. If a dog came close to his side he appeared to strike without looking. He did not allow any rear movements or attacks to divert his attention from the front, where the hunters stood at short range with rifles ready. They waited for a chance to shoot without hitting a dog. Suddenly the grizzly charged and all was confusion. With a stroke of fore paw he broke the jaw of one horse, with another stroke he caved in three ribs of another horse, he bit and broke a man’s arm, disemboweled one dog and wrecked another, and made his safe get-away. Not a shot had been fired. There was no pursuit.
While with three hunters, I once came close upon a grizzly who was digging for mice. The hunters opened fire. For seconds the cañon walls crashed and echoed from the resounding rattling gunnery.Thirty or forty shots were fired. The bear escaped. A hunter took up the trail and the following day ran down the bear and killed him. He carried no wounds except the one from the shot fired by this hunter. He weighed perhaps five hundred pounds.
But the story of the shooting as told by one of the first three hunters was something like this: “We came upon the largest grizzly that I had ever seen. He must have weighed fifteen hundred pounds or more. He was busy digging in an opening and didn’t see us until we opened on him at short range. As we had time, we aimed carefully, and each of us got in several shots before he reached the woods. He ran with as much strength as if nothing had happened; yet we simply filled him full of lead—made a regular lead mine of him.”
The grizzly is not an exceedingly difficult animal to kill if shot in a vital spot—in the upper part of the heart, in the brain, or through the centre of the shoulder into the spine. Hunters too often fire aimlessly, or become so frightened that they do not even succeed in hitting the bear, though firing shot after shot in his general direction.
William H. Wright once killed five bears with five shots in rapid succession. I was with a hunterin a berry-patch when four grizzlies fell with four lightning-like shots. George McClelland in Wyoming killed nine bears inside of a minute. He probably fired sixteen shots. These were grizzlies, two of which were cubs.
During the last few seconds of his life, after the grizzly receives a fatal wound, he sometimes fights in an amazingly effective and deadly manner. As an old bear-hunter once said, “the grizzly is likely to do a lot of execution after he is nominally dead.” Hundreds of hunters have been wounded and scores of others killed by grizzlies which they were trying to kill or capture. Hundreds of others have escaped death or serious injury by extremely narrow margins.
A grizzly appears to have caused the death of the first white man to die within the bounds of Colorado. This happened on the plains in the eastern part of the State. Seeing the grizzly in the willows near camp, the man went out to kill him. The wounded grizzly knocked him down and mauled him so severely that he died.
In southern Colorado I saw a frightened hunter on horseback pursued by a mother grizzly. He was chasing her cubs, when she suddenly charged him.The horse wheeled and ran. Although the hunter urged the horse to its utmost, the bear was almost upon them when his dogs rushed in and distracted her.
Hunters claim that if a man feign death when knocked down by a grizzly he is not likely to be injured. James Capen Adams appears to have saved himself a number of times by this method. I have not had occasion to try the experiment.
An old bear-hunter told me that he once saved himself from what seemed to be certain death, in a most unusual manner. A grizzly knocked him sprawling, then leaped upon him to chew him up. In falling, however, the hunter had grabbed up a stone. With this he struck the bear a smashing blow on the tip of his nose as the bear landed upon him. The bear backed off with a roar of pain. This gave the hunter opportunity to seize his rifle and fire a fatal shot.
Three or four men who have been severely bitten and shaken by grizzlies have testified that they felt no pain at the time from these injuries. I cannot account for this. Livingstone, the African explorer, also states that he felt no pain when a lion was chewing him.
I once witnessed a grizzly-roping in Montana that had rare fighting and adventure in it. Two cowboys pursued a grizzly nearly to camp, when several others came riding out with whirling ropes seeking fun. They roped the bear; but a horse was pulled off his feet and dragged, a cowboy was ditched into a bunch of cactus, another cowboy lost his saddle, the cinches giving way under the strain, and a horse struck in the flank had to be shot. Meantime the bear got away and stampeded the entire herd of cattle.
Bear stories have a fascination all their own. Here is one of five men who were hunting in northwestern Montana, a section of high and rugged mountain-peaks, snow-fields, and glaciers, well-nigh inaccessible, and wholly uninhabited save by wild animals. Two of the men went off to a distant glacier-basin for big game, separating and going on opposite sides of a ridge. One of them after a steep climb came upon a grizzly cub, so large as to appear full-grown except to the most careful observer. He killed the bear with three cartridges from his Mauser rifle, and then, leaning the rifle against a rock, stooped over to examine his prize. Suddenly he heard a fearsome cry and a swift rush.Turning, he saw the mother bear coming for him and not more than sixty feet away.
Springing to his rifle, he put two steel-clad bullets into the grizzly, emptying his gun. With remarkable coolness he slipped in another cartridge and sent a third bullet into her. But Mauser bullets are small and an enraged grizzly is a hard thing to stop. The three bullets did not stop this mother bear, frantic at the sight of her dead cub. With one stroke of her paw she knocked the hunter into a gulch, eight feet below. Then she sprang down after him, caught him in her mouth, shook him as a dog might shake a doll, and dropped him. She caught him up again, his face between her tusks, shook him, and again dropped him. A third time she snatched him up. But now the little Mauser bullets had done their work, and she fell dead across the hunter’s feet.